Category Archives: CUMH3 – Write Ups

17th April – CUMH3 – Frozen Dick

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(Courtesy Brown Finger)

Ah, yes, that’s it. Simply the best . Yes, yes, the Tina Turner classic anthem. Better than all the rest . . . Right, that’s the song that my brain has been trying to connect with Frozen Dick ever since he was circle-splashed some while ago for being over-effusive about anything he has ever done or anyone he has ever met, and in particular about the runs that he hares. You may well have heard him say at one of his hare briefs, “You know what? The flowers on my trail are the best, the most beautiful you will ever see.” Or perhaps, “You know what? The dogs are the best looking, best
behaved in Thailand, maybe even the best in the whole darn world.” And he never fails to tell you, of course, “You know what, the run today will be the best that you have ever experienced.”

So when we arrived at the A, I asked a rather wilted looking Frozen about the run he had set for us today, what we could expect, and was he happy with it. He wilted some more, sighed, and said simply “no, not at all happy”. Oh crap, I thought, and asked him why. He explained that it had been so hot and his legs got so tired that he had to amend his scouted plans and had cut a couple of k off the length of the trail, and he wasn’t at all happy about it. Oh, bloody crap, crap, crap! What on Earth were we going to find up there, I was thinking as my wary gaze traced the waterfall all the way up . . . and up. Frozen’s “best” runs aren’t always the best, so what was one of his “unhappiest” runs
going to be like. And before you assume that I am making this all up, you can ask Mr Poo, because I found out during the circle that Frozen had said something similar to him before the run and he was as equally, if not more, how shall I say it . . . concerned.

And so, with the hare’s rather ominous and nervously delivered instructions, “only circle checks and skiddy checks and not a very long run,” still echoing “unhappily” in my mind, we were off. Rather aptly, it was Skiddy who found the skiddy sticks, which happened to be painted, according to Skiddy, in the wrong shade of orange, and they had been kicked or run over so that what paint there was, was now obscured on the bottom of the sticks rather than radiating brightly on the top.

And then the trail went up, and we came upon a circle check. Gravy and I checked left and the Chucky-Doo-Poo-two checked right, and both dynamic duos miraculously found trail and called on- on at precisely the same time. Was this a new and nasty type of Frozen Dick check that he had failed to warn us about, deviously devised to completely screw the FRBs? But wait, what was this? After about a hundred or so meters of upward slog, Gravy and I ran out of the well-powdered trail and began to scratch the thinning hair on our ever-more-shiny scalps, pondering what could possibly
have happened. Looking back down the trail, and a way off to our left, we saw something we knew should not really be there, something powdery and white, presented like a thick line of cocaine. Oh my god, it was a check back. Shit, was this the new Frozen Dick secret weapon, an amalgamation of a V and a Circle check?

Thankfully, Gravy had scouted – but I hasten to add not set – this run with Frozen and suggested to me that by going the other way off of the Circle, the true trail was going to be a very short one. So armed with Gravy’s knowledge of the terrain and the intended trail, we decided to make our own run, a little bit of a longer run. So we did some bushwhacking, which involved a pretty precarious leap across the waterfall where Gravy was teetering on the edge of a sheer drop for a scary instant, and found some good trails further up the hill. And when we came down off the really best of the day’s trails, we hit true trail and ran unhindered back to the A, as all of the checks had already been
kicked out by those in front.

Following a longer-than-usual period of social drinking, Mr Poo summoned the circle. The virgin David took more than his share of the ice, as did the hare, who was splashed for setting precisely the same run that had been set here last time, only much shorter. And Suckity Suck was back to entertain us with gory tails of his recent pineapple-scarred operation. And Frozen took the circle for two separate T-shirt splashes that he had done before – more than once as I recall.

In the end, as it seems is ever more the case these days, we had a lot of fun in our own peculiar ways. Well I did anyway. Gravy and I had great fun running by ourselves, leaping over chasms, sniffing our own way back to the true trail, even though his GPS recorded only a 2.9k run, and with the additional off-trail trek, too! And the circle was a load of fun as well, with Mr Poo’s delicate touch and witty splashes . . . One more year . . . one more year . . . Whoops, sorry, that’s a different hash and a different GM.

So here’s to the heat-wilted Frozen Dick. He puts it back into the freezer when it starts to melt. That’s what it’s all about. Man, he’s an ageing hippy . . .

3rd April – CUMH3 – Square Rooter

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Rating: 7.4/10 (5 votes cast)

I set off with barely enough time to get to the run site and as I drove past the football field, I suspected we were heading to the same runsite as Sunday’s run – funnily enough we stopped about 100m short of the site we used on Sunday and that Alice plans to use next Saturday. I admit the trails there are great, but some variety is good! 😉 What is it with pink here???

Apparently I’d missed 9 minutes of the 10 minute hare brief – something about Belly checks? The hare missed out on the important details like who was going to the On-On, but Humperdick kept us organised before we set off. We climbed a hill, traversed a ridge and hit the first circle check. Brownie took the ‘obvious’ trail, which was obviously not going to be the right way, so when Angry Inch told us to follow him, I was a little surprised. Sooner or later we found another circle in a completely different direction and with countless directions worth checking the pack split up. It turns out the trail continued from where we’d had the circle on Sunday… And it set off the same way we did on Sunday – it felt like Deja Vu all over again!

Around the corner we found Square Rooter sat drinking warm beer giving nothing away as he guarded a circle check. It was a long time before Angry Inch gleefully called from back the way we’d come, heading steep up the mountain. Why were the rest of us so dumb? Square Rooter was the hare, there was a check – the obvious place to check is straight up the nearest hill! We reluctantly set off up the hill and there was no sign of Angry – he even managed to second guess the hare at the first Belly (Skiddy) check.

Over the hill I got a cross check wrong, and was chasing to catch up when they called another Belly Check ahead. Scooby and I went back along a neighbouring trail and found the pink strips only for 90% of the pack to short cut straight through the check. It was about here my thigh starting tightening up and my day was pretty much over. I started looking around more and spotted what trail we were on – I’d been the other way down here before – it looked a bit different, but I’m starting to make connections here. Next opportunity I let it go and walked back to the road, intercepting Frozen Dick on the way. Turns out Belly Dancer was already at the A when we got back – when he realised the hare was square rooter, he promptly “twisted his ankle” at the first opportunity – and they call me the most intelligent hasher???

The turn out was great – 20 people turned up in the hope of seeing Fandango sitting on the ice naked… Instead we got Graven Image – can we get a refund?

6th March – CUMH3 – Dog Shit

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Arriving at the larger to find a very very tired looking hare – was it a long run, did he tumble down a gully, or hadn’t he laid the trail en route home from Spicy and hadn’t got to bed yet? A modest turnout listened to Doggy’s hare brief and while Humperdick was getting numbers for the OnOnOn I took the chance to get a leap on the usual FRB’s.

The first check was a long time coming, so Chucky, Browny, Scooby and Gravy already ran me down with Horny Monkey at the 1km point. Semen Soars must have flown past at some point too and as the checks came and went – mostly straight on fortunately – up ahead the reason for Doggy’s tortured appearance became apparent!

Yep – tis the season and the trail was on fire! Poor Doggy had to go out and re-lay 3x and Humperdick had been summonsed to rescue him from smoke inhalation and dehydration. However along with Square Rooter, Humperdick and Turksih Delight we ended up in a large gully that a serious inferno must have just swept through – no paper anywhere. GPS said left and wasn’t too long before Square Rooter found trail.

With the FRB’s in at the 42 min mark for the 5.4km run – Frozen brought up the rear in daylight with a respectable 70 mins earning him the Wings. Some good running trails and without the fires would have been an ideal run.

So with some sadness CUM at 420 runs reaches an end. With CH3 now running weekly (still on alternate Monday/Tuesday’s for now) – what was started with a Dutchman perhaps somehow karmically ends with a Dutchman. Thank you all of those who have made CUM a enjoyable Hash and here’s to the future of Chiang Mai male hashing.

The Dutch theme continued with great food at Humperdick’s convenient and very tasty restaurant – so here’s to the Double Dutch team today! Cheers & OnOn – BD

21st February – CUMH3 – Mr Poo

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Rating: 6.7/10 (3 votes cast)

If we exclude the insane ball breaker, Mr. Poo broke records in January for elevation gain on a run. It seems he has his eye on the “prize” again in February and so he drafted in Frozen Dick as a co-hare – WTF? Perhaps we should rename him the “Square Dancer” after the inspirations he gets from the “Belly Rooter”? I was intimidated before I set off to the run, but figured I’d give him a little bit of faith…

After the hare brief, we were pointed over Bone Hur’s shoulder down a narrow trail. Humperdick followed Bone Hur as we slowly crawled our way to the first check. The grumbles began with the need to check, but I followed Boney a couple of hundred yards to an unfortunate check back. The Dutchman had got away and I seemed to get the next few checks wrong as I tried to make my way back through a pack on narrow trails.

Finally Brown Finger hit a False Trail, just as I got to the point where I thought that there should really have been a check and promptly led the way up the left side of the waterfall. Brownfinger was on my tail, but I could keep a good enough pace that I could do a Humpers and block the trail to the next circle. I hadn’t seen Graven Image at all – where was he? Having the first choice, I was fairly confident and took my time to pee on the trail just before I found the powder and set off to cross the waterfall and head back down. I was on fire! Seeing the False Trail from the wrong side confused me for a moment, but I was off again with Square Rooter and some Londoner in pursuit. I had these hares figured out – one bit of up and down just doesn’t satisfy Poo, so at the next opportunity I chose up… After 200 meters or so I was confident, after 250m I was feeling good, but when I hit the check back after 300m I wasn’t a happy man! And Angry Inch had the gall to accuse me of short cutting when I rejoined the trail!

A good circle had the FRBs thinking, and Skid Mark managed to get away, and I managed to get back with the pack, better still as the next check was a devious one cutting down to the right as finally we headed towards home? Down a waterfall and the circle checks were coming “Mr. Poo style” – i.e. at every opportunity, even if it wasn’t an opportunity! I love it! Skiddy led us off the waterfall, but then I have no idea how I ended up following Brown Finger down a trail, but with a nice decline I opened up chasing him down until I hit the trip wire the evil hares had deliberately placed there. So loud was my face first landing, that Brown Finger came back and gave me the option at the circle. It was just another devious plan by the ultimate racist bastard as he foresaw that I’d get hopelessly lost.

What happened next? I couldn’t hear anything, was off trail, so I headed down the hill towards somewhere where surely there would be an A bucket. Instead there was a resort. This hill has too many waterfalls, and I guess I was on the wrong one. It took me a while, but I somehow found my way back up and then back down to where everyone was waiting. It was time for a circle – not a short circle! Incidently, Mr. Poo broke is January record for elevation gain by 3m and today’s run has 150m climb more than any other…

Tuesday 7th Feb – CUMH3 – Brown Finger

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Rating: 7.5/10 (2 votes cast)

What had Brown Finger got in store? He wasn’t giving much away, but having run at the Ag Centre countless times, we had pretty much done every trail there was, on familiar ground, it couldn’t be too hard to figure these dumbass hares out. The hare brief was confusing – who was the hare, what were the instructions? I was starting to feel uneasy – I’m not sure I can trust them… Finally they pointed us off and I jogged off for 400m or so before I found powder – all the time waiting for the hares to call us back with “only kidding”. These bastards would stop at nothing, and somehow they’d already got into my head, while I was trying to get into theirs.

The first circle spelled out what they had in store for us. Just past a junction, of course the circle had to be back, so I reluctantly toyed along with their ploy checking straight on – nobody followed and nobody expected me to call On-On… WTF were these hare’s doing? Sure enough powder was there and we continued down towards the main road. Powder wasn’t good as we rapidly changed directions and then we hit “the circle”. There have been tough checks before, but this certainly brought everyone back together – including Bone Hur and Dog Shit who’d short cut to get that far! We were down by the main road, so Poo and I crossed the road twice – Poo even went fishing to find signs from months back. Around 3 or 4 hours later the hare came down and rescued us, pointing us over a fence and into shiggy that nobody would have wanted to check. It wasn’t the last time the hares would come and help us out – what on earth did we have in store?

The next “highlight” was the pile of horse shit that we were forced to scramble through – the good thing was we were going downhill through it, the bad thing was that Horny Monkey didn’t take a face plant into it – now that I would have paid for! After another check again the hare was on hand to help us out as we finally headed towards more familiar trails. Unfortunately then we found that Kwazi and Frozen Dick had short cut ahead and kicked out a few checks turning the run from a hash into a run in the fields – HRA and Chuck Wao took their advantage and scurried off.

For me, I prefer the mental exercise of the chess game between hare and hounds, over the actual physical running. I could get a beer at home, but it’s more rewarding after a feud, and fortunately we caught up with the short cutters and the game was back on with all the usual players yet to show their hands. A circle check had HRA plunging down the hill and then clambering through dense foliage to rejoin us. Chuck Wao started finding his fitness and feeling a victory started upping his pace. Horny Monkey gave up on checking and followed CW – to be fair I wasn’t far behind.

The hares had their finale planned and back in the chess game, I was expecting a “tricksy little hobbitsies” finish. Skiddy (shortcutting) found the false trail on their first V check, and we went straight towards the ‘used many times’ hole in the barbed wire fence. There was an alternative to the left and no check this time? I’ll let Chuck Wao find the unannounced Skiddy Sticks – I’m turning left! Would you believe it? There’s powder! Only HRA’s followed me, and I knew there’d be a check at the next junction. My head was in the end game – I got to the junction before HRA, so I had the pick. We’ve been here many times and there is an obvious way home. Screw it – I knew what they had in mind… This hare is happy to set a screwy trail early on, just to screw us further at the end.

The hares had more tricks up their sleeve, but with poor markings, I got to the On-In and it was beer time. So I paralleled a short bit – at least one of the hares would applaud that behaviour! As for the other, well we’re setting the next run on Saturday. Brown Finger is a deviant who’s sole objective is screwing everyone brave enough to follow his powder. Be prepared as he sets a CSH3 friendly run!

24th Jan – CUMH3 – Chuck Wao

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Rating: 7.3/10 (4 votes cast)

Chuck Wao swept into the country and was too busy catching up with young acquaintances that he picked his old favourite run site at the Fire Prevention centre. It was a modest crowd with some being put off by the pricing policy of the CUM, but it was a friendly group and we had a trail set out ahead of us. The hare brief was elaborate – the hare needed to explain to the assembled crowd how ‘international rules’ of hashing worked – the subtle differences between sticks that were painted red, and those that weren’t – it was epic! Finally he pointed the way and we set off.

At the first circle we were bemused by the sight of powder within 5m from the circle – but it seemed like old powder and with memories of the last CUM hash there, it was no surprise there was powder all over the place! Graven set a run on 29th November last year, and had laid trails around there. Turkish found the trail, and called loud enough for Brown Finger (and no one else) to hear him… Fortunately I heard Brown Finger and eventually we set off after the sneaky silent running git! Thankfully Chuckie had set some Skiddy Sticks (sorry a false trail) that pulled TD back with us and we charged down the trail to an excellent circle check.

BF, TD and I spent ages running around in circles, waiting for parental supervision and when Graven Image showed up, he led us along the obvious other option! Thankfully Chuckie had set some Skiddy Sticks (sorry a false trail) that screwed GI up and I led the way back into the mountains. These False Trails were going well – I’d lucked out on 2 of them so far, and CW had told us there were 3 in total – I just needed to dodge another one and I’d be home free! The trail turned steeply uphill and the mountain just seemed to get steeper… Thankfully Chuckie had set some Skiddy Sticks (sorry a false trail), but this time it screwed me up and let the wannabe FRB Turkish speed into the lead again – what’s this about him training for the hash at HTT?

TD turned back into sneaky bastard mode, pulling all the tricks out of his ass to ensure no one could steal his honour. BF took an excellent tumble, but all of us made it back safely to the circle – even though Mr. Poo and Frozen Dick did their best to get lost at the On-In… Short / Prompt circle is a good circle! I managed to get back home to the kids before it got too late, so all in all a good hash!

10th Jan – CUMH3 – Horny Monkey

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Rating: 8.0/10 (3 votes cast)

Horny took us out to his new favourite hashing ground, near the “Golden Arches” on the way to Mae Rim – cryptic clues that were enough to confuse Kwazi and Robin Banks. When I made the turn, there were no signs and I got close to the runsite before resorting to a phone call to the lazy hare. He led me in to the runsite and I lent him a sign to help the rest out. I leapt (leaped? lept?) out the car in the mood for a good old Dutch bitchin’, but then I saw Kwazi had found his way on his own, plus the look on the asshole’s face was a picture – it seems that while out setting the trail his bike had been impounded on suspicion of drug dealing due to the bag of powder he’d left by his bike. Rough day? The police must have been laughing thanks to the generous tip he gave them to thank them for screwing with him!

The hare brief done and we were off straight to some skiddy sticks by a stream – we didn’t have to cross it, or did we? Moments later we were paddling through while Graven Image and Semen Soars took a detour over the bridge – wimps! At the next check I got it right, but took a while to get to the powder – meanwhile the rest of the pack added distance in the wrong way – or in the case of Brown Finger and Dogshit, the right way to take a short cut. Along a trail next to the road and Graven again opted for the flat route. As the water grew between us at the road we were chuckling that his parallel running attempt had failed, only for him to rejoin the trail perfectly at the powder from the next circle – lucky short cutting bastard!

The trail headed towards where HM had set before – the boy scout camp with fun river obstacles, and as we passed by some great check spots, Mr. Poo and I meandered off trail to wait for Brown Finger to run back with the Skiddy Sticks. Then we hit a river with obvious powder leading up the bank the other side. I led the way in with Brown Finger, Skid Mark, Robin Banks and Dog Shit following. Where the hell were the rest? Wimpy bastards had heard the girl scouts screaming nearby and occupied themselves with the prepubescent views leaving us to find the skiddy sticks, cross back over the water and run back along the other bank and catch them back at the camp. We were greeted to a huge cheer from several hundred young ladies as we dragged the usual suspect predators away and back onto trail.

The On-In was huge – back down the road that GI had run out on. Brown Finger was getting in some training for when Chuck Wao gets back and led the race against GI, Mr. Poo and Semen Soars (notice 3 of these were fresh from having missed half the trail). Kwazi was duly punished for not understanding the concept of a “4 check” – I like them as they seriously screw up the likes of BF and GI. The circle was not short…. Largely due to Kojak Off smuggling some green goo in from Dutchlands and using it as splashes. A good friend of mine lives by the rule “Never put anything Green in your mouth” – generally it’s a good rule, but today the green was good, and everyone was willing to be splashed! Splashed became rewards not punishment with water being used as an alternate.

27th December – CUMH3 – Byte My Yahoo

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Rating: 7.5/10 (2 votes cast)

(Courtesy of Brown Finger)

I woke up this morning feeling strangely excited – not the usual morning stiffy kind of excitement (dear Doctor Byte?) but excitement at the prospect of pitting my novice hasher wits against the experienced and infamously inscrutable hare, BMY. Where would the Professor Moriarty of the hashing world lead us today? Would the keen instincts of the detective FRBs sniff out the true trail without delay? Or would the cunning academic fool us with his dastardly checks?

The hare brief provided not a single clue. “There may or may not be skiddy sticks, circle checks, V checks and cross checks.” What the hell . . . ? I inspected his finger nails. Not a trace of skiddy red paint, but there was a faint hint of a red stain – lipstick from his latest katoey? What could he be up to? We were about to find out. With a crooked finger and a villainous smile Moriarty pointed the way to the trail, towards mount doom rising up from the pits of hell before us, its lofty peak already gathering in the fading afternoon sun. An evil darkness was fast descending upon us as we headed out with heads bowed, glumly contemplating what we all knew would be a terrifying hashing experience.

Alice disappeared into the gathering gloom at a rapid rate of knots, hitting the true trails and leaving the check backs on the false trails for the rest of us to find. I was first to go left at a V check and hit the check back at about 150m – bastard! Skiddy was next, and he too found a 150m check back – bloody bastard!

Alice briefly lost the trail but then picked up the unmistakable aroma of Moriarty’s notoriously sweaty armpits that led us straight to a festive Christmas Tree Check. The drunken bastard that he is, Graven Image sniffed out the “Christmas Spirit”, which was suspended from a rotting branch of a dead tree, ominously like a well hung man swaying on a gibbet. Graven dispensed the spirit, and guess what? It was red! So this was the origin of the odd stain on Moriarty’s hand. Not katoey lipstick, but pussy blood as Turkish Delight correctly identified. So, poisoning by pussy blood was his evil intent, but we had much stronger stomachs than he could have imagined and we drank the foul juice to the last drop and found the trail that wound up the precipitous slopes of mount doom.

I was first to a V check and headed right – it had to be right – right? At about 150m I started to call onon – not even this sociopathic asshole would go beyond 150m, would he? Well, of course, this was BMY we were dealing with, and this was his own little “Christmas” run. “It’s the season to be jolly . . .” I could hear the fiend singing to himself back at the A site. Sure enough, at 200m I hit the check back. But this was no ordinary check back; it was a “HO” check back. So then, I had to wait for HO to arrive before I shouted check back? But wait, this was not a single HO check, it was a treble HO – HOHOHO. So then, when HO arrived I was to wait for him to arrive again, and then again? But wait, Ho was not even running today? I had to sit down, my head was hurting.

Recovering my senses, I followed the pack across mount doom to the waterfall. Now I clearly understood: this was surely the waterfall where Moriarty put an end to Sherlock Holmes, and he was going to put an end to us all at the same location – bastard, murderous bloody bastard!

But we were not done yet, and finally we found trail off a slippery circle check, tumbled over the deadly rocks, and got down to some flat running, which led us into a housing estate under construction, where I eventually stumbled upon a “3” check on the side of the road. I waited and waited and I yelled and yelled until others finally decided to walk slowly towards the circle. Perhaps the pussy blood was having an effect after all? Finally, we were off again, Jungle Chim and me
checking further up the road and Graven leading the pack across a patch of wasteland. Graven must have found the trail because the pack did not return and it was strangely silent in that direction . . .

Anyway, all of us arrived safely back at the A – via a hole under a wall that Moriarty had obviously rigged to cave in when used. We came in relatively together, except of course for Dog Shit, who eventually arrived moaning and groaning about the trail and the bad hashing practice of not kicking out circles for the benefit of those who are too fat and lazy to find the trail themselves. What is it with the Dutch? Grumble Dick, now Dog Shit? I can’t wait for Robbing Banks to start whining. But wait, what was that Robbing Banks? The trail was far too fucking long . . .? Oh, no! A trio of moaning Dutchmen! I feel a song coming on.

After the usual round of hare baiting, the small circle of friendly enemies galloped off into the wild and wonderful realms of pure fiction and fantasy splashes – but they were funny splashes and good humored, even the reticent Turkey was persuaded to gobble and splash a little, even though the only reason he did so was to avoid another trip to the ice for being completely brain dead.

Circle closed in good time we headed off to a great Thai restaurant, courtesy of Jungle Chim – plenty of Tiger beer, good food and all at a ridiculously cheap price. This place was extremely friendly and we soon struck up meaningful conversations with the locals. It was so friendly I even saw telephone numbers exchanged! Wow, I love this place!

So then, at the end of the day, I would say that Moriarty again won the day, for the most part outwitting his eager pursuers once again. But we managed to avoid damaging ourselves – physically if not mentally – despite his best endeavors to murder us all. Great trail, great circle and a great ononon – ribs and chicken at the A good, too. Happy Christmas, oh evil one, but you had better do something about those sweaty armpits; they are bound to give you away sooner or later. Instead of licking them, try having a bath!

Trail Setting Info:-

13th December – CUMH3 – Greasy Gorilla

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Rating: 6.7/10 (3 votes cast)

The instructions said HTT, and so it was – only the signage wasn’t that clear! I replaced one of the signs, which happened to be over a circle check that I didn’t spot at the time! Robin Banks was coming back from a pre-run scout when I parked the car and the run site was familiar… Before we set off there were many comments about a god awful run that I had set from the same run site – made famous by Suckit’s splash “YOU SUCK!”. Let’s hope Greasy had something better in store.

We ran back up to the road and my legs felt like crap. The first circle had us spread all over the place. Brown Finger had ran straight past the powder and needed Robin Banks to call him back and explain how powder works. It seems someone had cut the grass or something which meant the powder was hard to spot until the next circle. I got lucky and from there on it was very well marked. We headed away from the mountains (YAY!) but at each check the temptation was to go back towards the hills.

We crossed the 5km running track and headed into the construction site with everyone pretty much together. After some deviations we hit the circle check that finally defined the run. It was in a creek bed and had the entire pack scattered. I paddled my way downstream for someway, while Semen Soars paddled upstream. Most people checked further into the construction site, while only Skid Mark checked up a tiny hole the other side of the creek – when he called On-On I ran back to the hole and crept up followed by Ho! (Good to see Ho! back!). Semen Soars had found another way and was also running along. Meanwhile behind us Mr. Poo, Brown Finger, Dog Shit, Graven Image all got back to the river, but couldn’t find an easy way up through the stickers getting ripped to shreds behind us.

Up front I caught up with Skiddy and he inexplicably asked me to choose which way to go at a check that we both knew which way to go. I guess he wanted more exercise – I just wanted the beer! It was along the bottom of the hills and back to the A bucket with some circles that just weren’t going to fool anyone who has run at HTT before. We enjoyed a beer or 2 while waiting for the usual FRBs to get back. The circle was friendly with some good food. All in all, a good workout! Cheers Greasy!

29th November – CUMH3 – Graven Image

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Rating: 6.2/10 (5 votes cast)

When I woke up this morning, I wrote off the hash, my ribs were still too painful, but as a shitty day at work wore on, the beer seduced me, and I set off with the intention of doing as little as possible to get back to the beer – as it turns out the hares were on the same page!

The first problem was finding the runsite – I’d been there before, but couldn’t quite remember which way to go – a problem when the hare didn’t have signs… Belly Dancer had marked some of the route, but then he’d got lost so I was following his signs to nowhere for a while – when I phoned the hare, he had no idea where he was, or where the signs were – an ominous sign, but after a few random guesses I found my way to the waiting songthaew. It seems I wasn’t alone in having difficulty, and of all the ironies, it was Belly Dancer who was squirming about getting off, and being afraid of getting stuck in the dark…. hmmmmmm….

We set off, and fortunately for the late comers, it didn’t matter as we spent the first half an hour zig zagging around the car park, so that Humperdick (Grumpy Dick?) and Jungle Chim were able to join us easily. Turkish Delight got confused between holding and pushing, and tried to kill Mr. Poo and I as he launched himself off a ledge. Finally the hares found the trail they wanted us to take up the hill – it seemed we had been following their headless chicken dance in the meantime.

I had my strategy in place – the moment we set off towards the hills, I would duck off back to the songthaew – and so it was. First a V check with the obvious trail heading up – thanks Square Rooter, serves you right finding a false trail. Next up a circle – again, obvious trails up, so it was time to short cut back – and I was on paper again. Had I been running this thing seriously I would have been getting them all wrong, today I was trying to short cut and kept hitting trail. The trail got a bit confusing as we found paper in all directions, but they all seemed to lead to a Wimp/Rambo split – the Wimp looks so tempting, but we are about 2km in, so I should keep going a bit longer.

We hit the flat road along the edge of a lake, and everyone ran off ahead of me as I walked along, only to meet them all running back at me away from some angry dogs. Again there was paper everywhere as we promptly found trail leading around the lake, back towards where we’d just been. Another V check screwed Square Rooter again (excellent!) and then we were back to an arrow that seemed so familiar. Jungle Chim charging on up front suddenly stopped as we got back to the wimp / rambo split. He seemed completely confused as though he had no idea we were back where we’d been before, so I suggested doing the rambo again in case it was different this time… It took him some time to consider it, so I skipped past to the On-In on the Wimp Trail… I lucked out and it was only about 3km, the hares had done their best to confuse everyone without tiring us out too much. At least we weren’t stuck out in the dark!