Category Archives: CSH3 – Saturday

If we weren’t sure whether we could run at the Ag Center any more, we are now! Shortly after unloading the songthaew we were unceremoniously moved on. Fortunately the spot that Square Rooter used recently was close enough and the hare spared us part of his run around the fields at the end.

We set off along the road, and with prizes on offer throughout the run, the pace early on was fast. Turkish and Shagless sprinted off, only to run out of steam before we got to the first check. Everyone was willing to check though with the chance of getting a prize. At the first circle I went out to the road and spotted paper on a tree – it was another circle check so something wasn’t quite right. I started following the paper backwards, not calling while I tried to figure out how much was being cut off. A few minutes later, Turkey also found that circle and called everybody on. I tried to get people doing the true trail, but to no avail – Turkey led the way with only HRA and Obscene doing the correct route – I followed it round in a circle backwards and rejoined the pack as the trail went through the trees parallel to the road.

Jogging along the road with Chuckie it wasn’t long before we were on a very familiar little trail that runs behind the wall. Turkey was calling up front, but seems he forgot about collecting prizes, so I snagged a nice small heineken. Finally we passed Turkey as he came back from a short cut. The pace was fast and it wasn’t long before we came to the OnIn and welcome beer time…

Knockout teamed up with Chuckie, and we had another run at HTT… I love running at HTT, but after Sticky set 2 runs there recently and Mr. Poo plans a mini ball breaker, I wondered if the hares would find something different.

The new starting time had the beer monster fooled and we set off with little hope of cold beer at the finish. The GM didn’t even listen to the end of the hare brief before he took off for his few moments of glory. He was so quick off the mark that it took me a km or so to catch him, and I am not sure whether the hare brief had finished by then or not.

The first V check and I gambled left… Hitting the check back, I knew I could run through it, but given how the rest of the pack were still getting ready for the run, I went back, and sure enough the true trail looped back around and I chased Shagless on his one man FRBing. New rule, the GM sets off 5 minutes before the rest of the pack?

I got another check wrong and ended up following HRA (not so nice) and Junglicious (very nice) as we passed the football field. There was some concert going on, and the noise of bikes etc was ridiculous. Everyone was a bit confused and there was no way of hearing calls. I checked through the gate and up to the lake. I spied some pink paper on a tree near the lake, and gamboled over. I was back on, but not 100% convinced it was quite how the hares planned. I assumed HRA would come running up behind me in a minute and carried on.

My pacing was good and I felt comfortable – the checks now though were fairly easy to figure out myself, and there was nobody coming from behind. I got to the OnIn and saw Turkey on his way out. A nice run in familiar area. Most of the pack managed to figure out what the hares intended, only some of us were thwarted by the random concert that largely only attracts guys with noisy bikes. Said bikes plagued the circle, but fun nevertheless ensued.

Just back from a great outstation in Lampang! I could spend time writing about how great the hangover run was (set by yours truly), but I guess we should focus on the main Saturday run… We were at a resort in Lampang, and drove a couple of km uphill from the resort. An early start to make sure we could all finish the long 9km run in daylight – it nearly all worked out to plan!

Having scouted and played golf already, I was promising myself to take it steady early on… but with a downhill start I couldn’t resist and ran off followed by the kids (child of Gorf & child of Motorboat). First check, I gambled left, figuring we would head towards the hills. I picked a trail that went steep downhill, and was so gutted not to find paper, only to hear the calls down the otherside of the hill. I had to climb back up and descend the otherside, still with the boys following me eagerly!

Ack, this sucks! My home field advantage is gone completely at an outstation – there were great trails all over the place, but I had no idea where any of them went! Despite my intention to take it easy, I was all over the place, and never right. Fairly early on my gut said we were going to loop to the left (anti clockwise), but it seemed every time I thought we would, we didn’t. After 3.5km my golfing beers started reminding me they were in my stomach, begging me to calm it down… So I did. The pace & intensity had been pretty high with Gorf, Sloppy Rod, Turkish, Mr. Poo and Knockout doing most of the pacing, while even the likes of Geisha Gash & Superbitch were keeping up due to the quality of the confusing checks.

I trekked up the hill following Shit House & Toe Sucker. Keeping a consistent pace, I finally passed them as they paused for a break. Ahead was ABB, dipping in and out of sight, but I didn’t seem to be closing on him at all. Shagless suddenly appeared behind me and we jogged along for a while together, enjoying the views. There was one point when we emerged from the forest to a beautiful lake, with trees still standing out in the middle of the water – we both seemed to pause to take in the vista. I could still hear the calls ahead, and they started getting closer, only for me to discover they were the other side of the lake and I had to go around it.

At the end of the lake the hares were waiting with water, which was much needed. Most were given the option of a Wimp trail (VERY badly named, it was a challenging normal run!) or the “Rambo” – I wasn’t given the choice and ordered off on the Rambo trail. With some refreshing water, it seemed like a good idea for a couple of hundred metres, but I was down to a walk around the lake, and then stuck at a walk as the trail went uphill again. I wasn’t helping the FRBs at all! There were some nice trails to descend on and I got back into running, enjoying the exercise and enjoying the peaceful solitude of the jungle, again it was poetic. The occasional call from ahead told me I wasn’t far behind Poo, and as the trail switchbacked down the hill, I got closer and further away again.

Finally we emerged from the forest and hit the road by a temple. I saw paper on the corner, but then didn’t know whether to go straight down the road, or to the left. I spied Sups with some other walkers to the left, and jogged over to see them. Through a gate was Chuckie’s truck. Until here the trail had been marked excellently, but here it was a little confusing, and I was more than a little tired. Not seeing trail, Sups mentioned that we could go down the road. I headed across the field towards the road and found a pile of paper strips on the ground. Maybe this was right, but the calls from ahead were gone. On the road Sloppy appeared around 100m ahead of me and he seemed to wait for me to jog over. He was confused with the trail, and confused why he was on his own. Back off the road found a trail running parallel with Motorboat, Toyboat and another hasher (apologies, I was too tired to remember). They had lead the way on the “wimp” trail, and Sloppy took off again. The trail went back to the road, and the road looked easier to run on, so I trekked along the road while Sloppy explored the forest next to me. When trail ran out, we ran in together and were surprised to be the first back (apart from Pamela).

Still now nobody really knows what happened, except that we all had a lot of fun, a lot of good exercise running some great trails that were all virgin to me (and almost everyone else). The run was fantastic. We could have done with some light for the circle (perhaps the hash should invest in some outstation lighting?), perhaps the food could have been better co-ordinated, although everyone was as happy as I was with my pizza! Who knows what Anything etc. got up to, but they got back just before darkness! All in all, an excellent outstation – many thanks hares!

Sticky teamed up with Cuckold… Run location, Huay Tung Thao…. I love running at HTT, and stop there regularly for a bit of a jog, and I’ve set a whole bunch of runs in the area, so I wasn’t expecting too many surprises! We started from the entrance, saving 20B, but surrounded by others going about their exercise, several of whom I knew, but for some reason they didn’t feel like joining in with our original style of getting exercise.

We set off up the running track, and for a while I wondered if the hares might just take us on the 5k loop. Knockout wasn’t far behind as I got to the first check and I spotted paper off to the right – we cut quickly across to the smaller trails and weaved our way back up to the main running track. Another circle, and Piggy set off to check down the mud trail where we’ve often had circles. I stalled, but when he came back CW and I continued along and found trail heading through the small moobahn area. We were confident now that the trail would cut up to the dam and we would go across the dam. Sure enough it did, and we nailed the next few checks.

We were heading to the trail along the bottom of the hills, and as CW gained confidence he took off. Piggy joined me, and we jogged along for a while. CW was gone, and the next check had to be straight on, but Piggy to his credit did a bit of hunting around waiting for me to call. At the next check I got there as CW came back and turned to the left. I followed of course and we found trail heading through the rice field…. Ugh… At least we weren’t shot at today as we all climbed over the banks. Not long to the On-In and back down the road to the cold beer. A great run all in all, familiar trails, but there is a good reason I like running there!

I set off excitedly looking forward to a new runsite turning RIGHT off the Sameong road… Fighting through traffic I drove around the mountain and followed Sloppy up the hill until we stopped just a few hundred yards away from where Struggles to Cum lives and the area behind Doi Kham – had I known I would have driven the shorter route! Lung La was quick to set off the other way back to the city after!

Anyway, we were in for a virgin run! I’ve heard HRA talk about scouting that area before (and deciding not to set a run there). Sloppy has tried scouting there, and opted against it. Shagless tried, but gave up, and Square Rooter, who knows every trail in the area still hasn’t set a run there… What had TMB found?

We set off, and I had some inside information that helped me out early on, although I’m still not sure I understood what I was instructed – it was nowhere near the in-trail, so perhaps it was some hare misdirection tactic? Either way we went up a hill, cut abruptly left and back down to where the hare was waiting camera in hand. Sloppy got ahead and as we crossed the road he made good time climbing the hill the other side. This was the mountain that even Turkey was afraid to set a run on – as we climbed the trail we were nervous about what was ahead of us. We followed the main trail, which makes it hard to put checks, but the hare tricked us a few times with false trails, only to loop around and rejoin the trail just ahead of where we were.

The tactic worked well and kept Turkey, Poo, Sloppy and I together, and after a while CW and some others joined us. There was a lot of climbing (216m total), so the kind of thing Belly would enjoy, but wouldn’t be proud of. The thought going through everyone’s mind was – how would we get back down from the hill??? Had TMB finally found the holy grail of hares? In short, no… After she’d had enough, she turned abruptly left and dropped us off the side of the hill. Straight down, sliding, slipping on the wet muddy slope.

It was little surprise that some struggled to come in daylight. Rooter got all the way to the top, and then knowing there was no pleasant way down turned back and jogged back in from the opposite direction. The first sections of the trail were fantastic – great running and some great checks, had the trail continued over the mountain it would have made an excellent miniballbreaker!

The traffic on the canal road is getting worse I’m sure. A long slog down to the end and then left – away from the mountains to a spot that only Shagless has set runs from. Now why is that?

We gathered, we looked at pretty markings for the harebrief and then we set off. CW, TMB and I walked briskly towards the first check before jogging away from a car. I guessed left, CW agreed and followed, and not long after we were alone. The 2nd check screwed me… A lot… There seemed to be no other way to go, so I went further and further in the wrong direction. When the check was finally called I was a huge expanse of rice field away from anyone else and spent a deal of time balancing and trying not to damage the farmers crops. Eventually I scrambled my way over to a beautiful temple where even Sunspot was ahead of me.

I jogged my way along and finally hit the front where Sloppy was taking a pee rather than checking for trail. Then I got lucky and got ahead for a bit. A V check wrong and CW and I were together. The next V check I wanted to follow CW, but protocol suggested I check the other way. To my surprise I was right, but there was no sound from behind. A couple more circle checks and I could have been home free…. Except I went wrong at the next circle, and was left chasing after the likes of Sloppy, CW, TMB and HRA… A long slog in – during which time FINALLY MR.POO caught up – not sure what he and Knock Out were doing or why they were so slow as they still had energy when they past me. I remembered parts of the run from the last run there – keep at it, you might find a good one there! 😉