Category Archives: CH4 – Write Ups

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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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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1st May – CH4 – HRA

Posted on May 1, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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The new CH4 runday, the new CH4 runtime – who would show up? how many? I arrived early, missing the traffic from work, and past Frozen Dick & Microwave getting some extra exercise on the way to the run – on their bikes. Microwave set off for a bit of a recce to find some trail. Turned out around 30 or so hashers showed up, one of the larger CH4 turn outs for a while. It was nice to see Ninja, Taste my Buns, Beautiful Box join us, and I’m sure there were some guys too – oh yeah, Sups was there. Not a bad start!

Eventually HRA let us have a hare brief and set us off. So called virgin trails – ha! Anyway, we set off and Chuckie and I walked for a while before starting a jog and eventually getting to the first check together. One of us should check left, buuuut… nah… Unlikely! So we carried on and found trail. I’ve never been to the left there, but nor has there ever been a hash set to the left there – I figure it’s a dead end! The next check we had to split up, and I opted for the regular route to the left. Somehow it was None of Your Business that found the 3rd choice and called us on. He led the way for a while as we headed into the hills. I enjoyed following Knock Out, Ninja and Itchy up the hill, and as we got to the top I caught up at a sneaky False Trail that was omitted from the hare brief.

We followed old trails up a ridgeline, and another circle check was surely going to take the trail up the the buddha statue on the hill… Nope? Seriously? He wanted to take us down to the gully? Damn! A circle check at the bottom of the hill, had me guessing it was to the left. I followed Itchy for a few paces before LumberJackOff called from the other direction. Where was it going? Turns out he was calling on old paper. Sure enough we were back up the hill, back to the trail by the little buddha statue – I could have saved myself the down and up if I’d just gone with my original theory. What the hell, we descended quickly to another familiar runsite.

Chuckie went further to the right – further away from home, while I mossied around a couple of trails, only to find Pigshit looking at some paper! He’d been absent all trail and then showed up ahead – had he spent some time at Graven’s private hashing school??? We charged down the hill to the Wimp Rambo split – a glance at the watch and it was already nearly 45 minutes – did we need the rambo option? Ugh, being first there, I guess I should do it…

Next circle check and I am a complete fucking moron. I should know the area better than that, but found myself checking out on a peninsula, while Graven’s favourite padawan called “RU?” from the other side of the lake, mockingly, like a blind man who really hadn’t seen the trail he was following! 😉 Back on trail, and back with the pack, somehow Taste my Buns was up front – nice running! We climbed through a barbed wire fence, while Horny took the arduous route over a tall gate. Down the road – we were homing in on the A. Taste my Buns was leading the way, and bizarrely she went right at another circle check – that wasn’t going anywhere. Chuckie alongside, and only Lumber Jack Off lumbering ahead, I made my move… We were nearly home, everything was falling into place, one more check, turn left and we are back in…. Except it wasn’t left, it was straight on… and coming back from 150m or so I was back behind None Of Your Business! He looked over his shoulder, saw me, started running, looked at his watch, figured it was too far, and the lazy boy gave up.

We had an extra loop around, but it was all kicked out as I came through, having the luxury of watching Chuckie and Horny congratulate each other as they found the final check and hence the OnIn.

Rain for the circle temporarily moved us up the hill to shelter, and then back to the the original site for a delayed, but entertaining circle.

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20th April – CH4 – Pigshit

Posted on April 20, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Virgin Hare… what could we expect???

In these write ups, it is rare for me to be overly positive – my attitude generally is that respect, and compliments, need to be earned – if it’s a spade, then I won’t call it a shovel. I’m not good at pandering to people, so sometimes I find myself doing a write up, where I’m clutching at straws to find positives to talk about in a run. Today is not one of those days. With that preamble, I would have to say that today’s run was fucking brilliant.

I could leave it there, but should go into more detail. It was at the back of BJ Ranch near Ob Khan. Frozen has been setting some good runs there, and there are clearly some great trails up in the hills there. Before the run we were all talking about the “Double Check Back V Check” from not so long back, and hoping the virgin hare wouldn’t make a rookie mistake. The hare brief came, and in this case “hare brief” was not the correct description – it wasn’t so much of a “hare long”, but more a passage of time where the hare just told us complete lies. There as a Wimp / Rambo split, but the wimp trail came in at 2.5km, and the Rambo came in at about 5 – not the 7km we were promised!

We set off up the hill towards the other runsite we use (the one with the shelter that could have been useful as rain was threatening!). First check, and I got it wrong, but given where we were, both choices met at the same point. As I paralleled over to the trail I had a dispute with one of the laziest old dogs I’ve ever seen. It was a very old labrador, that had lost its voice, felt like it should bark and be aggressive to me, but just didn’t have the heart to go through with it. Anyway, I came around the hill to the circle check arriving the same time as None of Your Business who looked incredibly disappointed to see me, and promptly sprinted off. I plodded along and for a while Poo and I were feeling old as Willy Walls and NOYB set the pace ahead of us – damn kids these days!

That was all over at the next check as I led the way – and then over my shoulder the loudest caller turned out to be Brown Finger – the co-hare!!! WTF? BF was sticking with his FRB ways, even though he knows the way, he’s got to be up front calling OnOn! I screwed up the next check, and when I caught up some hashers were checking around, while the rest were giving Brown Finger the Spanish Inquisition as he guarded the circle. There was no OnOn call, and BF was being worn down. Eventually he crumbled, and without telling me explicitly where to go, he gave enough away, and I was back on trail. Graven appeared behind me and we started working well as a team putting some distance in past the W/R split. Things were going well.

It was deja vu. Graven and I were working well together up front. Now when I look back at the track from my GPS, it is clear the hares had me completely twisted up in circles – excellent play! I was checking completely in the wrong direction (looking for the 7km run). A bit disoriented, I’m not sure why I kept going wrong at that point, but sure enough some of the pack caught up, and somehow Graven slipped past me. When we got back on trail it was straight forward back to the OnIn and the beer!

A virgin circle running, where many protocols were absentmindedly overlooked. A good circle nonetheless – even with a long story about the US coast guards!

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6th April – CH4 – BMY & CW

Posted on April 9, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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It was the day after BMY and Big Top’s fabulous “mini” ball breaker (circa 15k = mini???) and I was looking forward to an easy, scenic hangover run through some of the beautiful countryside we are so blessed to find in abundance surrounding Chiang Mai.
Dr Byte and Chucky Whoooooooooooo had promised us something special – a live hare run to impress the many visitors who had joined us on the Sunday Happy Hash as a precursor to the celebratory 1000th CH3 run on Monday.
All through the previous week, the hares had suggested some charming hills and complementary flat trails – Chucky the supremo uphill gardener haring the hilly bits and Byte making sure we didn’t get to deploy the KY gel on the flat bits.
And so, after convincing our visitors on the songthaew they were in for a treat, it was a bit of a surprise when we arrived at the A site – a concrete shell of a house on a large dusty building site full of similarly incomplete, ghost-grey structures. Not to worry I thought, the lush green hills were only a short distance away. Surely we would be heading in that promising direction . . .?
The hare brief was suitably brief, with BMY suggesting the girls set off 10 seconds after the hares and the men a full 20 minutes after . . . mooh-ha-ha-ha! But the girls didn’t fancy the idea for some unimaginable reason and we all headed out on the chase after the obligatory five minutes had elapsed.
Belly Dancer spurted forth like a lame hippo in a tutu straight towards the main trail leading up into the hills, ignoring the paper trail the hares had set. Did he have inside info? Or had he been “misinformed” by the devious hares? Sadly it turned out to be the latter. The trail led us out into an open expanse of fields where a centrally placed circle check had us checking left towards the hills. But alas, the hares, intent on fucking over the FRBs at any cost and ensuring their own anal virginity – well at least for the purposes of this run – turned right, right back into the construction site via an un-happy-hash-like gully where I was fortunate enough to be on hand to give Itchy and Sleepsy a hand down and then a conveniently placed hand back up again – mooh-ha-ha-ha.
More grey dust trails, past more grey shell houses and over a familiar main road; and then we reached the familiar criss-cross warren of running trails used by the local fitness community. Good flat running trails. Many checks to hold us back. Lots of puffing and panting after yesterday’s “marathon”.
And then we emerged from the rabbit’s maze onto a flat, grassy field – it somehow reminded me of Newmarket race course – and back to the main, main road, where the trail led us back to the main road that we had previously crossed.
A long tarmac run; but this was Skid Mark territory and he rightly predicted the old favourite under-the-fence hole. So under we went and were thankfully off the tarmac and back on a dirt trail, the one with the familiar sneaky offshoot to the right, the one leading back to the building site and the A.
I followed the trail to the concrete fence surrounding the building site until I hit a false trail check back. So it was up and over the fence. None of Your Business found the trail on the other side and was first home, punching the air with obvious delight. There were a few stragglers but nothing to cause concern as the reliable Tip Toe was on hand to lead them on and in. Welcome back big man!
Great circle hares, but Big Top was probably right when she said that had it been any hash other than the Happy Hash, you would both have had willies over your heads for the tarmac and dust content of the run. But what do we care – this is the Happy Hash, right? Who needs willies when simple wit and humour will more than suffice?
As with most Happy Hash circles and on-ons (this time at the magnificent Sheryl’s), the magical blend of beer, good-natured splashes, fine food and welcome camaraderie, cast its spell upon us all and all thought and talk of the run eventually dispersed into a delightful alcoholic fog.
Good job hares! But I wonder what would have happened had None of Your Business caught Dr Byte before the end of the run . . . mooh-ha-ha-ha?????!!!!!
Ah, I do so love the Happy Hash!

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30th March – CH4 – Itchy Bitchy

Posted on March 30, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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The pollution puts some of us off, so Itchy chose to pick a run site about 20 metres from a fire… We all considered peeing on it, but even before we set off running the lungs were clouded with smoke.

It was an interesting run site – almost missable, except for 3 large “A” signs on the ground. We knew the area, as we’d run past it before, but I don’t recall a runsite there. A brief harebrief and we set off between two lakes. Quite a way to the first circle, and Brown Finger generously let me check the correct way. Another circle and I was heading up the hill… Brownie of course caught me (following me at an obvious check), and we ran into a circle on the ridge together. My bet was the trail down to the right, but I didn’t have enough confidence, so chose the higher ground up the hill. Brownie chose another hill, and when we came back Chuckie was calling the trail I originally wanted.

Down the hill and a random circle check on the trail guarded with barbed wire. Where to go? We carried on and found a gap in the fence. Brownie spotted powder down below, so we opted to throw ourselves off and work our way down. When we got there we called, and the pack came following, not having found a better route by then. Brownie, Chuckie and I were ahead and confidently checked the same way at the next circle. We were wrong, but what made it worse was when we were wrong a second time, and Graven came steaming through to take the lead.

It seems we cut off a couple of km and ended up near the A site sooner than expected. Nobody was overly concerned, it was freaking hot and we were glad to finish when we did. Great trail Itchy!

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23rd March – CH4 – None of Your Business

Posted on March 23, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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So the boy went out to set his first haring, good on you my son! He could have chosen anyone to be co-hare, and he chose Horny Monkey… wtf? At first glance it seems like a strange decision – seriously? out of all the hashers you picked Horny? On reflection, it’s genius… If it is a crap run, he can easily blame Horny for not letting him do a good one…. If it’s a good one, he can say he set a good run even with Horny holding him back!

They went out to scout on Tuesday, and then laid trail today. On Tuesday there was a performance where they suggested it was going to be “Steep”. I nominate Game Set and Snatch for an oscar, and within moments I doubted we would be going up the hill. Suspecting the lower trails, it was a challenge to get some more info from Noyb. He’s normally coy and cagy, but he was clearly excited, and started to open up! With a few probing questions I knew we would be going over the dam by the Kalae Rest restaurant, and over the wall by the gate that would be closed by the time we got there. He had even told me there was only one more check after we got to the junction where the road turns to the left and the trail goes straight on (in turned out that was where the false trail that ultimately thwarted me was).

An elaborate hare brief covered most of the checks that would be ahead of us. The only one they didn’t mention was the H3 hold check – where we are supposed to wait for 3 people to get there? As it wasn’t mentioned in the hare brief, and I was the first one there, I just kicked it out and carried on (yes I confess!).

We started with a deathly scramble down the waterfall, and hit the road. Chuckie behind me predicting what was going on – it’s his old hunting ground too. The first false trail was predictable, and then we headed straight towards the lake – I knew there was a chuckie check near the lake so he could through the sticks into it. I got a couple of checks wrong early on, but when Chuckie went up the hill to another predictable false trail, I led the way to the check on the dam. I carried on, and then when it was called went the long (but quicker) way around along the road. Intercepting trail again, I led the way up some steps, confusing the short cutters that followed Turkish Delight (welcome to Sundays TD).

From there it was straight to the gate, over the wall and back along the trail. Why oh why did he put the false trail at the end??? Why would he do that to me?

Nice job.

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16th March – CH4 – Chuck Wao

Posted on March 17, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Finally a Chuckie run on a Sunday – again it was described as ‘serviceable’. We were just north of the 700 year stadium at a moobaan favoured by Horny Monkey – familiar trails, but perhaps a different take on it?

I set off with Brownie, and were back along the road I’d just driven in along the canal. Strange – I’m pretty sure this doesn’t go anywhere, and no sooner had I figured it out, as we ran straight into a back check. Not the best of starts – we turned and followed Humperdick along the road that takes us towards the hills – even though we were close to the hills, we couldn’t exactly see them because of the pollution.

The trail headed off to the left – Horny Monkey and I eyed the trail briefly before deciding it would be a dead end, carrying on to find true trail moments before Humperdick found the false one. A few circle checks had us tied up in knots around the lake behind the stadium, and then we were on some nice trails. Construction work is tearing up part of the hillside, so it was a little unfamiliar. We scrambled down a steep drop, only to have to climb up the otherside. After a circle check there was more climbing, with None of Your Business scampering ahead. When a nice looking path headed off to the right, I yet again dodged a false trail, and in no time we were down onto the trail that runs along the bottom of the hill.

Everybody guessed to the right, to head back to home, but it just felt a little too soon, so on my own I checked along to the left. With no calls from behind me, I checked harder, and I was on! The trail headed up to a waterfall – definitely not going to be that way at this point – another false trail dodged. We knew we had to head into the rice fields, and I was lucky to get the right route in. Across the fields to the moobaan, and the hare had found a neat way of bypassing it, taking us back out onto the canal road to come in.

While the run had started precisely on time, and the FRB (me) was in in almost exactly 45 minutes, the circle was someone on the tardy side getting started, so the hash cash feared we’d go bankrupt.

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9th March – CH4 – Graven Image & Brown Finger

Posted on March 10, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Graven decided to set a live hare run, and to decrease the chance of being caught he signed up Brown Finger as a co-hare. He also brought in Pig Shit as a co-co-hare, although the latter denied any knowledge of the route and would run with the pack. It turned out later that the hares also seemed to have no knowledge of the route and got themselves lost.

Brown Finger had already disappeared, but after 5 minutes headstart we set off after Graven. At the end of the road, I turned left, and went about 150m before finding the trail – sneaky hares! The trail abruptly turned left towards where I knew there was a lake – it was suspicious, but I figured I’d play the game and duly went to collect the spare paper at the False Trail.

Clearly the hares can’t read Thai, as they took us straight through a gate that stated ห้ามเข้า. No choice but to carry on. Into the woods, there was a circle check in the middle of nowhere, only trees, no trail, but from memory I knew there was a wider trail straight ahead, so I ploughed on through a bit more than the 100m. When I got to the trail, I checked down to the left, and then as hashers were calling I went back up to the right, and sure enough the paper emerged from the trees and headed on up the hill.

A single trail heading up, with occasional circle checks off to the side – each just returning to the main trail up up up up. And at the top was the “BN”. I was on my own, nobody around – would I get to drink all the beer? First I had to find the beer – and just past the BN was a circle check… Huh? Where was the beer? Oh, there was a somewhat obvious bag right next to the BN and in it the Tiger juice. I had some time to wait for the rest, so I figured out where the circle check was going back to, and kept yelling for them to follow me up the hill.

Finally Poo showed up. When Square Rooter got there, he ignored the beer, and headed off in the wrong direction – let them go! Back again, and we headed down the hill on a different trail. When we got to the road at the bottom, a circle check had been replaced with a Wimp Rambo split – no mention of that in the hare brief! The Rambo took us back to the ห้ามเข้า gate, where the hares had put even more paper over the poor family’s yard. A bit further on, and a circle check was suspiciously next to a ant infested log bridge, that I straddled my way over with Poo following, only for trail to be found in a different direction. We were back in the forest on the old trail, and as Chuckie led the pack back up the hill, I thought better of it, and finally None of Your Business found arrows and trail back through the trees again. He took off like a whippet, and we were soon back to the Wimp Rambo split – only this time it was just an arrow heading up back in. Confused? We all were! Especially the co-co-hare Pig Shit who led Dead Virgin all the way back up the hill and finally limped in in the dark.

It seems the hares had screwed up from the start and spent all the time trying to fix their mistakes. None of Your Business celebrated at the On-In his victory!

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10th Feb – CH4 – Suckit

Posted on February 13, 2014 by admin| Leave a comment
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Suckit teamed up with Itchy, Poo and Knockout to organise the 500th run outstation – some ways towards Chiang Rai. When I eventually found the resort, after driving back and forth along the highway, most were ready and waiting. Perched on a little hill there was a spectacular vista all around. What did Suckit have in store for us??

I led the way through the first few checks, with the help of inside information – from my cabin I’d seen some white spots on a trail that was about a km away – now that is a well marked trail! Things were going well with Brown Finger forced to take the false trails each time, until finally my luck ran out and I was behind. We turned into a little valley, and at a circle check the pack spread out. Brown Finger climbing up a steep hill, while most headed off into the gully to the right. I headed left, and to my joy hit trail that curved around the base of the hill.

OnOn, and onto another nice trail that climbed into the trees, only to once again be thwarted when we deviated steep down to the left. Not far later I caught the pack at another circle that had everyone scattered. This time I wasn’t so gleeful to find the trail leading steep up a rubber tree lined mountain. It wasn’t far up, but mentally it was tough and the groans came from everywhere. When we got to the top, all we had to do was go back down the other side – equally steep, but lined with straw for a soft landing, and almost enough trees to swing between on the descent. From there the hares had put in yet another hill, but this time it was the hill with the resort sat on top. Nice run, in a completely new area!

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