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19th June – CH4 – Pigshit

Posted on June 19, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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A low turn out for Piggy’s run out in Maejo. With other runs out of town coming up, and much of the hash community overseas it probably wasn’t a surprise to only have me, Chuckie, Humps, I Got Gas, Square Rooter and Tip Toe there for the run. Tip Toe thought better of it and promptly turned back, while the rest of us went to see what Piggy had put together for us.

Across the concrete to the trail the other side, and we could have put the first circle there ourselves. First there so I got the pick and went left – if it was right then he knows there is a nicer trail to use to get there, so why go across the concrete thing? I was pretty confident, until I found old paper and shortly after heard the On Call from the opposite direction. Chuckie and I turned about face and caught up at the next check.

Rather than using all the lovely trails around Maejo, Piggy decided to cut cross country hacking our way through the shiggy. Back on trail and he was putting checks every 1 or 2 junctions. Square Checks replaced circles and the lead rotated between myself, Chuckie, Humps and IGG. You could feel hump’s joy when he got the trail at the top of a steep incline, and it took me a while to get back on track.

Finally we got to a V check, where both CW and I thought it had to be left – he took the dummy trail to the right, while I walked along to let him catch up after he hit the check back. Unfortunately it was me that hit the check back, and was left to run the last 1.5k or so on my own behind CW, including a good km along the road after the OnIn.

After the run we moved the circle to IGG’s place, away from the mosquitoes, with the pool, pagoda for the circle and then upstairs for chicken dinner – cheers IGG!

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12th June – CH4 – Skid Mark

Posted on June 12, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Rating: 6.8/10 (4 votes cast)

What do you expect from Skiddy, particularly when he picks a factory out in San Kampaeng rice field country? As I pulled into the runsite the rain started, and it continued through the harebrief and out onto the run where Snail Trail set off with an umbrella! Along the road for a long way before we saw paper dripping, hanging off a tree – was this how the run would be? Finally the rain eased and we paddled our way through muddy paddy fields – Chuckie was hating every minute, while Piggy was like a Pig in Shit, running along ahead.

Various checks passed, and at each I found myself either checking the wrong way, or slipping and sliding my way along behind. The run hinged on a single check that must have wasted 15-20 minutes. Over a little bridge and a circle check that had hashers spread out across yet another rice field. Chuckie and I checked the less obvious options before the bridge, while HRA found paper in a trail, but lacking confidence in a senior moment decided not to call it and to carry on checking instead… Finally we called Skiddy and with some inside information we got back on trail.

Finally we hit some nice running trail, and it was enjoyable briefly, until we we back into the paddy fields scrambling through the scratchy weeds that have grown in the off season. The lead swapped around and at one point I found myself on the wrong side of a canal that was too far to jump or paddle. Fortunately there was a way across a bit further up, and I lucked out with the checks. Trail difficult to spot in the rice fields as the hare used up all his leftover papers and that brought us all back together shortly before the On-In. I didn’t see the On-In as I took a detour to avoid yet another balance beam.

Could have been a much nicer run without the rain, and without HRA thwarting our efforts!

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7th July – CSH3 – Mr. Poo

Posted on June 7, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Rating: 9.0/10 (2 votes cast)

The GM teamed up with his wife for a run from the football field – since they have a car, Mr. Poo has been adventurously exploring further away from Wat Umong and the Boy Scout Camp. I arrived in timely fashion, scarcely able to collect the money and then chasing to catch up the pack as they already set off. I grabbed some water, but as I later found out, it wasn’t enough…

A couple of good checks early on before we crossed the road and paralleled the hills. Another check left HRA leading the pack up into the hills. A gentle incline that HRA was happy to scamper up, as was Gorf who quickly passed me, and then Piggy who overtook in a much more gentlemanly fashion. A long stretch, up hill with few checks. Fortunately it was a great trail, but the heat was getting to me, coupled with the hill.

Finally at a circle check the trail headed down – but having climbed for a couple of km, we wiped that out in 100m downhill, before starting another ascent – continuous, upwards at a gradient just too steep for me to try running, but seemingly nothing for HRA (the mountain goat), gorf and piggy. I was relegated to running with Turkey and I wasn’t feeling good! At one point Turkey sloped off to the right, only to reappear slightly ahead – sneaky bastard – maybe he’s onto something? I tried sloping off to the right, and despite confusing HRA, I ended up the wrong side of a deep gully.

Check the watch, only about 3km in, and I was spent. Hot, thirsty, knackered… I got to the road and decided to straight line back down the road, managing to get back before passing out. Not sure what went wrong for me, but the heat killed me. The trail was great, but I am way out of shape at the moment…

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31st May – CSH3 – Shagless

Posted on May 31, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Way down the canal road, further than any other run I remember! Finally I got there and a reasonable sized group gathered ready to hash. Hare brief done, and we were off – into rice fields along trail marked with plastic?!? WTF? Quickly to a V check, and I was wrong to the right. Back through the pack, and finally I got towards the front as we slowed to cross a dodgy little bamboo bridge. This one had something for us to hold onto – unlike some that came later…

It was out of the rice fields and into the lamyai forests. Was this really Shagless, or had Skiddy been the real hare?! It felt like San Kampaeng, or Saraphi, but instead we were miles further south! Gorf was setting the pace upfront, regularly passing me every time he fucked up. The checks were doing a good job of fucking everyone up, keeping us going round in circles – particularly when we followed our old trail back to an old V check. We survived though, and followed the flat bank of a small creek. Some shiggy, but a lot of trail.

Finally the heavens opened, and with the rain pouring down, it was hard to see trail, let alone paper – at least we would have a tent or a shelter when we got back… right? Wrong… When we got back there was just the rain pouring into a muddy A site – and it took so long to decide to put the tent up, that the rain had finished before the circle started!

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29th May – CH4 – Itchy Bitchy

Posted on May 29, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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I thought it was Itchy and Sleeps on It, but in the end it was just itchy, from a familiar runsite – the 400th CH4 if I’m not mistaken (well, one of the 400th runs). I have fond memories of the last run that Itchy set from there, where I had the ‘perfect’ hash. What would happen today? Humps set the early pace, and at an early circle check, I went right, while Chuckie went left. Finally after an eternity Humps called from straight on where he and Pigshit were checking – the paper was a long way after the circle, and I spent some time weaving my way through the walkers and back markers, finally getting towards the front in time to hear Piggy calling OnOn from the next check.

What was Piggy on? Whatever it is, I need some of it! He was on absolute fire, nailing check after check after check, leaving us trailing out behind him. It was up a steepish hill, so Chuckie got an advantage, leaving Poo and I to scramble up behind. We could barely hear them ahead of us, until all of a sudden they were on the next ridge over! Piggy and Chuckie had broken away so it would be a long hard chase. I tried to settle into a rhythm keeping up a reasonable pace (6-6:30 per km), and the beautiful trails and views made the going easy. At one point I heard a call from down to my left, but it was just from a dogleg in the trail, and that was the last I heard from the breakaway, or from behind either.

The checks were kicked out, and trail easy to follow, until I got to an unbroken check. What to do? Nothing from ahead, nothing from behind – clearly it was the most obvious route, so I continued on and sure enough found trail. At the next check, I moved some of the paper to let Poo know which way I’d gone (and not come back from). So it was for a few checks – perhaps the breakaway thought we’d like the challenge of checking, but each time I guessed right first time (just like them). Finally a check that was kicked out, and around the corner an OnIn. A great trail by Itchy, and excellent running from Piggy and Chuckie – it was as though Brownie was still here!

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26th May – CH3 – Skid Mark

Posted on May 26, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Time for the AGFU, time to get rid of Skiddy…! A large crowd gathered in the hope of something better, having followed instructions more detailed than ever in Hash history – probably longer directions than this write up will be, to a run that was closer to the city than 90% of our runs! I thought HTT was my closest runsite, but nope, they’d found a busy market much closer to town to meet up.

Hare brief muddled through we jumped into the songthaews for transportation to the start of the run, with the hares doing a bad job of disguising the fact we were going to be running back to where we parked the cars. There was no disguising the fact that we were going to be swimming across the river. Some idle chat in the back of the songthaew was broken up when I spotted white paper out in the field just the other side of the river – confirmed by Humps, we had a good idea where the run was going.

Finally we were set loose back along the road and into a field. A circle check, and time for a protest. Having been accused of not doing a good FRB job, a few of us decided to, well resign as FRBs. Rather than suffer the wrath because we might not always get things perfectly, we decided to sit it out and wait for someone else to find the trail. And so it was, I Got Gas and HRA called the trail across the field, we kicked out the check as accurately as we could, and took off with the goal of catching them before the next check. We did, and enjoyed a pleasant sit down on a nice log.

At each of the checks the RA, Chuckie did an admirable job of marshalling the troops, to ensure all possible options were covered. Meanwhile Turkey was doing his fair share of checking along with Belly, HRA and Piggy. Turkey again resorted to underhand tactics on several occasions, and we were left at the check while he didn’t call on on – we needed to put out spotters to see if he started running or not.

A long way into the run and it was still Belly leading the way. You should have seen him when we could see paper off from a circle in a direction nobody had checked. It took years off him as he sprinted off. We waited for him to call to make sure the check was kicked out to international standards before chasing him down and letting him have the prime choice at the next check.

Finally we got to the river, the inevitable. Chuckie inevitably turned back to find the nearest bridge. We lost trail, and I ended up leading the way down to the river bank. Hacked through a tunnel of snake infested shitty stickers, to the water, and it was time to get wet. Some hashers took the short cut straight to the hares, while the rest of us went to a circle check on an island in the middle. It might have got a bit deep, but we all got across and trawled the short distance back up to the cars.

A very different running hash – I had fun, and hopefully a lot of other people had fun doing some checking too. On to the circle, where Skiddy sacked his team, and paved the way for……….. Frozen Dick to take over. Yes you read it right… I had every intention of heading home for an early night, but I ended up at the hash pub, and breaking curfew on the way home. Damn Junta, and damn it when I’m having too much fun…

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24th May – CSH3 – Frozen Dick

Posted on May 24, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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FD teamed up with HRA for a run way down the canal road. It’s an area we’ve run in before, but a slightly different start point always puts a slightly different twist on a run as I try to remember just exactly where everything is. Today we started further away from the mountains which meant we had a couple of km before we got off the ‘roads’. I got the first check wrong, and coming back was behind Piggy. Running along with Chuckie, we were about 100m behind Piggy, and he just kept nailing the checks – as soon as we got to a circle, he was calling OnOn from up ahead. To be fair I would have checked the same way, but he was doing well…. Until, the trail turned a corner, ignored the smaller trail that went straight on, and put a check not far around the corner…

Chuckie was coming back to check straight on, and between us we found the trail with Piggy finally getting something wrong. Into the jungle, sometimes on trail, sometimes not quite a trail, but there was a reasonable group including the German ladies, Tasty Buns and Romy, while Turkey was desperately trying to get a break. A tough circle had us scrambling everywhere, and amazingly Piggy got back to the front, with Turkey on his tail.

Another circle check, and we again dispersed, calling “Checking”. That was when the hash changed for me. Somewhere behind a loud voice called “On On” – surely from a previous check, but a bit confusing – I called “Checking” back, and again the “On On” call came, this happened a couple of times before Humperdick bellowed across the hills that he didn’t care if we were checking as we had clearly short cut to get there. Fortunately, most of the pack ignored him, and we managed to work as a team to find the trail and continue, but the constant grumbling was enough for me – I lost interest and walked back.

I hash because I like to run, and I like to have fun running interesting places with a fun group of friends – I don’t go to get bitched and and bullied – that kind of destroys the fun part. I go out and put in effort to find trail, and help those behind find their way along as well, while having fun at the same time. If I get there ahead, so what, if you get there ahead, so what, it isn’t a race, and it certainly isn’t an exact science – the point is the exercise and the beer, with good humoured camaraderie. It certainly isn’t about intentionally trying to confuse people who happen to be ahead of you on trail.

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19th May – CH3 – Pigshit

Posted on May 19, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Piggy with another run up in Maejo. As I got to the runsite just before the run start there was nobody there. Seems the traffic at the 2nd ring road caught everyone out, but most people arrived with a few setting off a little late. The first check took us to the left before a cross country scramble up to the abandoned village with roads, but no houses. The trail took us diagonally across it before ducking down onto the canal road. I was getting things right until there, and at that point from looking at my map, I was VERY close to tangling with the intrail – had I gone gone slightly different I would certainly have found some paper, but fortunately it was called in the other direction.

Perhaps Piggy thought we would get bored of the lovely running trails in the area, so instead he dragged us along a creak, cross country through shiggy. Finally we got through to some more trails and the lead was rotating between Poo, Chuckie, Lumber Jack Off, I Got Gas and I. And with a testing check finally Turkish caught up. I was clearly disoriented as I kept turning left when we should be turning right, but the checks were good enough that we kept getting back together.

Poo nailed one check, but didn’t realise for quite a way, leaving us well behind, only for him to run off paper, and come running all the way back to where we were parallel to him a few yards to the left. (This was Piggy’s strategy for not intersecting the trails as I mentioned earlier. From there it was straight on back, although I’m not 100% sure we went the way Piggy intended us to…

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17th May – CSH3 – Square Rooter

Posted on May 18, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Square Rooter teamed up with Sloppy Rod from my least favourite runsite – the park near the zoo. Sure enough he sent us off up the side of the waterfall with the prospect of a Wimp/Rambo ahead. The first circle check was a no brainer and I stepped ahead of Chuckie to make sure I picked up trail up the hill. Sure enough we were heading up, until we ran out of paper by a pile of ripped off strips. We called looking and carried on up the side of the waterfall – being a popular area, it seemed like the trail might have been sabotaged. It had, but it turned out we’d gone through a V check, and the pile of paper was what was left of the check back. Behind us NOYB was leading the way on true trail, while myself, Chuckie, Turkish and Lumberjackoff carried on up the hill.

With no trail to be found, we hit the main road, and turned right to head down the hill along the main road. Surely we would find trail at somepoint? It was a long way down, and a long way around, but finally I spotted some paper on a tree, and sure enough a circle check (as yet unbroken) at the side of the road. We carried on down the hill – not On. Back up the hill and there was Tasty Buns and NOYB coming out of the temple. Over the road a trail headed down and there we found paper, finally we were back hashing.

After a longer than needed climb, and a long run down the road, I was just trying to keep up as CW set the pace up front. A few more circles and then nothing… A check, but no trail for a long, long way – until we found the hares still setting the in trail. They’d been so worried about having lost a bunch of hashers that they’d forgotten to set the end of the trail.

Again the trail ran out at the road, so Turkey and I just ran on in for a beer. Had we been able to follow the trail, I think it would have been a nice set – some interesting flattish trails discretely hidden at the foot of the mountain, only something got lost in the hare”brief”. Something was also lost when the hares forgot about JC’s 700th run.

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15th May – CH4 – Throbbing Ninja

Posted on May 16, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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A Throbbing Ninja run by the familiar trails near HTT. So familiar that Turkish Delight was out for a training run, saw us and came and joined in the fun, wondering what the hell we were doing there! He was on good form too, sprinting off at the start, and staying up with the FRBs throughout – the training must be paying off!

Memories of the last TN run cause nervous tension with the mountain looming – would she do it again? We set off and having been told it was about 4.5km, the mountain seemed the obvious direction. The usual place for a circle check. Right towards the lake, left along the bottom of the hills, or straight up the side of the waterfall? My gut said we were going to be going straight up, and for once I was right. I have bad memories of setting a truly terrible run up that trail in the past – I’d scouted the hell out of the area, and it didn’t end well – what would happen today?

Another couple of checks, and it was straight on up, up, up. Chuckie like a mountain goat crept up behind me, closer and closer, until when the trail took an abrupt turn to the left across the waterfall, he took over the charge. It wasn’t easy going, precariously balanced on the side of the hill with no real trail, just scrambling from paper to paper. Finally a trail, and the hares teased us by letting us use it for about 100m, before again cutting off into the unknown.

Finally we started descending, and Piggy, Turkey and Chuckie were with me as we charged down a nice trail. When we did get to a check, they didn’t think twice about following each other straight down, leaving me to do the dummy check back up the hill. Sure enough they were on, and the trail descended straight down to the main trail at the bottom of the hill. No check? Huh? Straight along the bottom back to the first circle, with the only confusion coming when we expected there to be checks and there weren’t. OnIn, and back home… It could have been worse!

After the circle was a visit to Coffee Monster, nice new restaurant / working place off the canal road.

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