Category Archives: CUMH3 – Tuesday

So today’s run was a team effort!  Byte My Yahoo was down to set the run, but due to work commitments, the various CUMH3 roles were divided…  Square Rooter laid the trail, Byte My Yahoo bought the beer, Chuck Wao delivered the beer and Humperdick brought the food.  Despite the logistics, everything seemed to work out nicely in the end!

I was late (due to my work commitments), but as I set off across the fields I could see the other hashers as they set off from the first circle check, and after another couple of checks I was back amongst everyone. And ‘amongst’ is the right word as pretty much everyone was together for a very long way. Square Rooter has a lot of experience, and he seems to will every FRB in the wrong direction at every check. Finally we came across a genius circle check, where the trail continued from within about 20m behind a pump house. Sadly nobody thought to check thoroughly there for sometime instead we scattered in every other direction.

HRA finally picked up the scent and ran through the next 4-5 checks squealing away in joy as he guessed right and right – until a nasty little check on a hillside. Rather than continuing on the lovely (if steep) trail, the hare had chosen a animal path concealed through the trees – again around 30m from the  circle check. With HRA amiss finally I could have some fun, but so late in the run Square Rooter had returned to old form and found an evil incline – Up-Up-Up! That hill was a killer!

Finally we hit the top and there was the circle check. Even so late in the run we had no idea whether we were looping to the left or looping to the right – I picked left and Chuck Wao reluctantly picked right. As I headed back down praying for paper, I nearly gave up when finally I hit the right trail and we had a lovely running track down the hill. From then on I took turns with Chuck Wao getting checks wrong with HRA picking up all the worst choices – getting lucky at the last check I past a beaming hare as we trundled into the A bucket.

Dick Tracy had somehow managed to avoid the hill and nearly beat everyone to the beer. Dog Shit and Kwazi Moto found the hill a bit steep and finally lost ground on the way up – they cruised back in much to the hare’s disconcern. Humperdick had a stellar run, keeping with the FRBs all the way round – that’s what happens when you run three times in a row! Bone Hur was as usual in the mix at the end – the mountain mad man who sets off slow, but comes home hard. Shame about the circle!

Upon getting directions for the ‘Tiger’s Mouth’ in Mae Jo – I wasnt sure what to expect from the pairing of Frozen Dick and HRA – the rule about not having a run more than 1 hour for the songtheow is indeed a good one and after driving nearly 40km from my house to the run – I’m looking forward to the CSH3 outstation ~15km from my house! Fortunately I found myself driving behind Skid Mark – as with out his familiarity with the location – and the hares economical use of signage – would have meant me getting very lost!
So with a pack of 8 (including hares) – we were given a hare brief about running on shredded paper (not powder) – we were told the run was ~6km and sent on our way – all six of us. I decided to try a bit of FRB with Suckit and Honey Monkey on my tail – but the first circle check led me to a double (powder and paper) bar – hummm – not such a  good start. Suckit got lucky and I never saw him again, so Dead Virgin who had just got off the plane and I attempted to keep up with a very luminescent Skid Mark and Horny Monkey. Between Dead Virgin’s worshiping the natural flora and fuana – we lost sight of the FRB’s and somehow Kwazi too – who was trailing us, so we were left to enjoy what was in fact a remarkably good run – with nice trails and some enormous checks.

The scenary and trails were very good and its a pity its so far out of town as would be a good location for runs – even some evil looking hills which I did get a little excited about. One circle check near the end of the run in powder did fox Dead Virgin and Belly Dancer – obeying the instructions to ignore powder – and the FRB’s not kicking it out – did give Dead Virgin another chance to commune with nature – but was close enough to the laager to not fool us too long. The run turned out to be ~ 4.5km but enjoyable enough.

Being a modest pack – there was piles of beer – Tiger beer (Pamala) – no choice but at huge expense and efforts of the hares – the circle went on … and on  … so much so that Kwazi gave an epic performance and hope to see more of this … the move from big bike to big truck has worked wonders! After 2 hours of beer consuption – we headed into town to hunt down Chuck Wao just returned from a spiritual trip to Pattaya. Needless to say Dead Virgin got into his religeous grove again and some point even Hole Plugger appeared!

Thanks hares – more of the same please – but hopefully not quite so close to Myanmar!!

Suckit is generally known as a good hare, and today was no exception. His reputation drew a reasonable crowd to the Chiangmai Underground Male Hash (CUMH3) for their memorable 400th run. For a change Suckit had us drive around the back of the mountain to attack his usual area from the other side.  He did warn us that we may run into old paper from the last run he set there, but as always it just seemed like a complete maze to me!

As we set off it seemed like Suckit had set the dogs loose and followed them  with orange postits and powder – and before setting off he’d fed them some weird drug to make them explore the area in completely random tangents. I couldn’t figure out where we were heading, so a couple of checks completely confused us. Bizarrely (or maybe not) towards the end of the run we came running up behind Screwed Up who appeared to be guarding a circle while Frozen Dick, Belly Dancer and Superman set off to look for paper…????  We all know Superman is the master short cutter, but had he really led the rest astray?

The rest of the FRBs also charged off looking for paper in completely the wrong direction – afterall we were all completely disoriented! Had Graven Image been there, his GPS would have kicked in, but instead it was Greasy Gorilla who spotted a trail in a ‘Dykie’ check – back the way we’d come. Many hashers were caught the wrong side of a ravine, which left HRA and Chuck Wao some running to catch up. Both HRA and Chuck Wao (along with Horny Monkey) were spotted short cutting a little loop – the racist basturds! As it happened they ran the wrong way at the On-In and rightly came in behind Greasy.

The circle was concise and fun rounding off a good weekend of hashing – time to let these legs rest up until Saturday!

One thing I will say, Seaman Soars always puts plenty of effort into setting a run, and today was no different. Nonetheless, he was given plenty of grief as the hashers arrived. The friendly welcome party of waving Thai soldiers didn’t quite make up for the lack of A bucket sign – plus of course Semen Soars should have stopped the rain! Fortunately the rain did stop and we were set off with the instruction that it was A->B.

And so we were off into familiar ground at the end of Huay Tung Thao lake. Pretty much everyone has run here, and pretty much everyone has scouted to find out where the army base is and where not to go. So when the first circle came up, nobody really wanted to check right, as surely that didn’t go anywhere we wouldn’t get shot at? But right it was, and the army base loomed. At this point the army escort at the start began to make more sense – and when the army patrol fishing on the reservoir simply waved and smiled, rather than shooting us, things were looking up. Fresh trails that I certainly haven’t hashed before.

And there were some great trails – so much that even Kwazi lifted his demeanor and enjoyed it. After the reservoir Chuck Wao inadvertently ‘short cutted’ by finding some trail a bit ahead and missing a few hundred metres of trail. HRA set off in pursuit and managed to follow along around 100m behind Chuck Wao – which meant that as Chuck Wao got every check right, HRA was in the right position to kick it out behind him, so as Mr. Poo, Sloppy Rod and I trundled along another 100m back, it turned into a straight run. (With it being an A->B run it was pretty much a straight line through the army camp).

The route gave us some interesting insight into the army training facilities, including a run through an assault course. HRA couldn’t resist the monkey bars! The trail was doing well until for some strange reason the hare sent us along nearly 2km of bitumen to a randomly chosen place for the songthaew to wait for us. We overruled the hare and took the songthaew back to save the stragglers from needing to suffer the bitumen. Afterall, due to the ‘national holiday’ and being an army camp, there was no beer waiting for us in the truck! Around 7-7.5km made it a good test, and a fun run in an area I don’t know if we will run again for a while.

The friendly army escort took us back to the cars, but didn’t stay for the circle. Colonel Cornhole somehow lost his keys – he left them with the hare, who left them with Ulrich, who managed to drop them somewhere along the way – fortunately Dyke Converter saved the day – and it was splashed repeatedly through the circle. My overall verdict is a good run, some good trails, it just could have done with some more checks!

Dog Shit set today’s run out towards Ob Khan and a decent crowd of male hashers turned up. From the A, we had a great view across to watch lightening strike in the hills to the West. Ominously the lightening drew closer, and sure enough within minutes of setting out on the run the heavens opened and we were in the midst of a downpour.

The first victims of the rain were Dyke Converter and his son MiniMe, diving for cover before Dog Shit had even gone looking to help. Shortly after Frozen Dick and Screwed Up decided better and turned back in the downpour. Belly Dancer wasn’t far behind and that just left the idiots to keep swimming through the rain.

There were a couple of spots where the trail had been washed away by the rains, but to be fair Dog Shit had done an excellent job of backing up powder markings with paper, so there was enough remaining for us to find the route and eventually the storm passed, the rains eased and we were left running through a light drizzle on some really good trails – if a little slippery in places.

Chuck Wao was on form determined to break away from the pack, and he managed to several times and eventually stormed away at the finish. The trail ended with around 1.5km back the way we started, which made a true runners finish. Despite the rain, which was out of the hare’s control anyway, Dog Shit set an excellent 8.5km run.

Well that was a surprise! A dozen runners showed up at a field near the canal road a few clicks south of Sameong with low expectations – afterall the last runs set by Bone Hur were complete disasters.  Driving down I was remembering the 20 minute run he set in the same location and the abomination he set with Superman not far a way.  With low expectations, it is easy to exceed them – but today he really excelled!

Despite the unseasonal rainstorm that started just as we set off, the trail set off nicely into the trees and low hills. It was a true runner’s run with plenty of good running trails – even though I’ve run there several times, Bone Hur found plenty of new ground to explore – and plenty of beautiful scenery to enjoy.

After a great circle check at the top of a hill turned us back nearly 180 degrees, a group of 4 broke away at the front – Chuck Wao, Brown Finger, Graven Image and Byte My Yahoo. The last checks are always the most important, and it was a V check that split those groups and let Graven Image run to the On-In alone – well he would have been alone if DogShit hadn’t short cutted his way to the front.

The rest of the pack weren’t far behind – except for Frozen Dick, who carried his trademark of coming in at nightfall. Good food afterwards, and an OK circle before the boys headed towards town. As far as runs go, this was a great run over some great terrain – a reminder of why we do this!