Tag Archives: Brown Finger

24th November – CH4 – Taste My Buns

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TMB teamed up with Foxy at the arse end of the universe 11+km south on canal road. Ack… even driving from the university was tedious. Finally I got there, and got ready for whatever was in store. After the harebrief we ran around 50m to the first check… and while I say ran, really I mean walk. There wasn’t much effort going on… and at the check there wasn’t much effort either. Brownie went left, and then right… I went through the barbed wire but didn’t put much effort in. KO picked the correct trail, but hadn’t worked out what pink paper looked like, so it was a long time before Brownie found it and we were finally off.

Second check, another circle, and Brownie immediately thought it was back to the left – he’s scouted the shit out of the area, so I’ll take the hint. I went down the trail 100m or so, and it looked promising, but no sign of pink paper. I stopped and started scanning the forest to my right, trying to see anything pink, but nothing, and no call from anywhere else… Where could it be? I stood there 2-3 minutes, before turning around and realising I was stood next to the paper. ONON and we were off again, and I promptly got the next V check wrong, so the pack was back together. Onto the decent running trails, gently undulating, and the pace was reasonable. I pushed along until I hit a False Trail…. Huh? No word about them in the harebrief??? This was a tough one… Around 150m or so back to the main trail, and then 100m along the trail before anyone found it. I was already back at the false trail double checking I hadn’t made a mistake when the call was made.

Another false trail, and the pack was being kept together on tight trails. Graven and I hopped over a ridge while the pack checked a circle check 100m to our left. The gamble paid off and we joined ABB who found the paper heading straight on. Another check, and trails all over the place, with Angry picking a nice looking trail up to the right. Graven called it quickly and we had taken a left turn. I was convinced this trail was turning right…. And I couldn’t be more wrong. There was no check as the trail headed into a gully to the right. But then a circle in the gully. We had to be turning right somewhere, but it was kinda steep to the right. Graven, Angry and I carried on, none of us willing to look at the trail up to the left. In the end I went back to the circle and tried going back on trail to find a way to penetrate the hill on the right. I couldn’t believe it when the OnCall came from up to the left… WTF? Am I seriously this disoriented?


I had heard the hares say how they could avoid the hill, and this was clearly “the” hill, so I figured going straight down the gully, led you to an easier way around to the right, and I very nearly took it, and had I done so would never have been seen again! Instead I pushed up the hill, and was shocked when people were checking to the left. The devious hares had taken us into a gully, up a steep hill, only to come back down it just metres from where the trail had gone into the gully. Seriously? Was there ever a good reason to climb a fooking hill??? Do we look like we need the extra exercise on hill repeats? From here there were no checks for a LONG long way… Somehow I was chasing Angry Inch with Brownie and Graven on my ass, which meant a solid sprint until I had to let them pass. So we could get to utter confusion. Trail ran out, was there a check? What was going on? Even after seeing the maps and talking about it to everyone I have no idea. I didn’t see a check, and it took a while to get back on paper.

Finally I recognised the trails again, and had an idea where we were going, but by now Brownie had a nose for home, and he was taking everyone with him. I got to a circle check about 8th, but everyone ahead had gone the same way. This descended into a farce where I was just about the only one bothering to check another direction. Piggy gave up his “no running” philosophy and charged off with Brownie. Graven did his best to keep up, but had to check the wrong way at a V, and then I got the last circle wrong at the end – a circle that surely would have already been kicked out given the calibre of the athletes ahead of me?

A long circle, and not enough beer – the hares went to a great effort to set a really good run – a long run, >8km including checking, with some really clever, tough checks…. and then we run out of beer?

19th November – CSH3 – Frozen Dick

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Lets go backwards… The ONONON… I will never set foot in that establishment again – completely and utterly the most disgusting experience I have ever had, anywhere, ever. I have gained a reputation for getting bad service, getting my food last, or not at all…. I am trying to be composed and relaxed about it, and ordered a burger, reconfirming the order with the owner a while later. I have NEVER been shouted at by the (farang) owner of a restaurant after I didn’t get my dish. She didn’t care at all, initially blaming me for confusing her staff (by ordering a burger), and then blaming my friends for eating my burger!!!!! After 10-15 minutes of being shouted at by the owner of the restaurant, I went to say goodbye to my friends, whereupon she followed me and continued to shout at both me and the rest of the hashers. I trust that nobody will ever visit that restaurant ever again.

Backwards… The circle was good – the hare was heard to remark that often the better circles come after a fucked up run… Yes, Frozen, you know what is coming….

I arrived at the runsite and Frozen initially suggested I parked 100m or so away from the circle, which isn’t a great idea as beer monster. After a very long hare brief, we were finally set off with ambiguous instructions. We hadn’t even found trail when we were off paper with Obscene calling us on on old paper. Finally we were underway and I nailed the first couple of checks and then promptly got it wrong. Chasing back I was running up a bit of a hill, and we got to a couple of V checks before all hell broke loose. A circle check….

A circle check… a harmless circle check? We scattered… And we found paper…. Boy did we find paper… We found paper all over the fucking place!! And the hare had be kind enough to autograph ever piece of paper with “FDSS” (frozen dick and Sheep Shagger – note Sheep Shagger wanted nothing to do with it – he wasn’t even there). Sadly 90% of the paper we found had FDSS on it… And it was leading in all different directions! Several times we confidently set off following trail, only to run out of paper. Other groups of hashers were following other sections of trail, sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards… The only thing that was absolutely clear was… we had no fucking idea what we were supposed to be doing!

I ran back to the previous V check to check if it really was a check back on the other trail. HRA was running around talking about rubber tire bridges, and we shouldn’t cross them, the hare said so… Finally there was a huge “ONON” call, and all headed towards it, only to find Chuckie, calling us back to the circle and saying he was giving up and heading home… (except he didn’t know which way home was!) I pointed out where home was and told him how to get there back down the road, but also that it wasn’t the point of the hashing – I wanted to solve the mystery! We found another circle check and Angry Inch failed to find paper down the obvious road – at this point, just about everyone gave up and headed home, leaving only Brown Finger and I trying to figure it out. We followed a trail backwards, we knew the paper was backwards, and then when trail ended we were very close to “the circle” after doing a bit of a loop around. Things were making sense now, and back to the circle where everyone gave up. This time we approached from the correct direction, and with almost all other directions thoroughly checked, everything became clear like a flash of light – we turned left and headed into shiggy.

From there it was nice running trail, and Brownie kindly jogged along at my pace so we could run in together, overtaking HRA & Cumalot holding hands after the OnIn. Fun times!

http://labs.strava.com/flyby/viewer/#779862116?c=w5q61w6j&z=G&t=1OC2d4&a=ZMB7LlFYdi4

12th November – CSH3 – Sloppy Rod

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Mini Ball Breaker time. Sloppy and CW had scouted the shit out of this run, I had high expectations heading out to the runsite, this would be engineered to the highest level! The signs led us well past Baan Pong resort, which confused Sheep Shagger & Big Top, but finally we all got there ready for a slightly late start. The hare brief was thorough.

We set off, and although we were deep into the hills, the trails were immediately familiar – I felt like I was on a Belly Dancer run… Yikes! Familiar trails, so some familiar checks – I nailed the first few, even though the checks were cleverly placed, so the out trails weren’t obvious – memories help! We headed over to the rocket launcher lake and trail went the long way around a field before a circle check. My first instinct was to follow the main trails towards where the BB had gone, but after a quick survey, I picked across the dam. The trail had arced nicely around so that the route across the dam wasn’t obviously visible. Nice work hares – I thought I had them and headed to the dam… Nothing up on the dam, and nothing to be seen in the distance. Surely I was over 100m from the check? Damnit, I went back and headed down the obvious trail and TMB called out from the bushes that there was nothing there. I was flummoxed. Finally HRA called from over near the dam – the MOFO bastard hares had gone over the dam, but disguised their approach, and I must have been within inches of finding their paper on my first guess.

Over the dam we went, and then a Wimp Rambo split. From here the checks were less frequent – less opportunities to put checks as we entered a valley. I tried to keep pace, but also tried to save energy for the anticipated 13km. 3km in and I was feeling shaky. I was dripping with sweat. So much that anyone behind me on trail would have been slipping on the wet trails like a thunderstorm had been through. The trail turned upwards, and I hated it. I thought I was mentally ready for a 13km ball breaker, but at the first real challenge, I was broken. Climbing hills I try to keep the philosophy of keeping going, but today I am disappointed in myself. I broke. I paused and leaned on a tree, with sweat pouring off me like a thunderstorm. The pack passed. Some cursing, some screaming (ONON), most cursing to be honest… I stopped several times on the climb. It was steep – I think I have been there just once before – 20th May 2013 (does anyone have the GPS of Belly’s AGFU run???).

Finally we summited and Knock Out was there waiting for me, or probably Poo who was just behind me. We descended the other side, and I could hear people ahead, but the trail down (for me) was treacherous… I certainly didn’t feel comfortable at more than a walk, and mostly I was picking my footing to avoid falling over, or falling off. I was shaky, and hopefully wasn’t holding up the group of Poo, KO and ABB. The was a check ahead, and as I descended slowly towards it, it seemed there was a huge group of hashers just stood there, until eventually Cumalot called from further down the hill – why hadn’t the FRBs found it already? Was I back in it? Meh, the trail was still the kind of trail that I inched along and before long there was silence ahead.

Finally we levelled out and I started striding forwards, only to immediately turn my left ankle in a hidden hole. DAMNIT!!!!! I should just resign to this not being my weekend. As we came out into an orchard, KO said that it looked like where we set the run a few months back. Impossible, but my mind raced, and suddenly I knew where we were again. And as we turned left I was happy to know we were heading towards a really nice cut through back to the main big lake. Poo took off, leaving us behind, and I mixed walking and jogging to get through to the beer stop. Water stop? No water? WTF? No hares? From Strava the FRBs had set off just ahead of us, but when we got there, there was just an ice bucket of beers… It took less than a nanosecond for me to make a decision, and I made the true hashers decision to grab a beer. And a while later, Poo and I walked back to the A… Not what I had planned, and from looking at the maps, the end parts of the run look really interesting… Thanks hares!

The final moments of the run was Taste My Buns running in a couple of hundred metres ahead of Graven and Brownie – who weren’t holding hands, at least they weren’t when they saw us watching…

27th November – CH4 – Horny Monkey

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The day has finally come… Horny has set a run so bad that not even he could bring himself to turn up to! Now there have been some decidedly dodgy Horny runs in the past, but he has always been there to take his punishment – where was he today?!? He lays trail and leaves it for Brownie to suffer for it?

Anyway, I showed up – it was on my way home afterall… Brownie had some inside knowledge – he gave the hare brief with an apologetic air. How bad was this run? Horny hadn’t shown up, and Brownie was clearly disowning it. We set off, dodging eggs through a chicken (bird flu) coop. We got to the road and saw a V check off to the left. I went right, and got to a False Trail… So was it a false trail or the check back? A check back the other way and we climbed a small hill to a boobie check. Horny loves his boobies.

Into the familiar trails, and it was clear he wasn’t going around the lake, so we had to hug the shoreline. Clearly unscouted we descended into an overgrown pit only to find a circle check and climb back out again. Momentarily on nice trails before we were into the stickers with legs being scratched up while I knew there was a nicer trail just to my right. Damnit! Graven had thought better of it, and waited for us at the end of the lake. It was slow going – Tiptoe was still an FRB – and we’d barely got started when we got to a newish road and a circle check. It can’t be back yet, so I went left. I looped around a long way back to the check, and still nobody had found it. Finally Junglicious called onon back towards the A. Already?

A brief false trail up to the right and then it was back down the main road to the A. I had 3.2km and 29 minutes. Most had much less, and we estimated around 2.2km for true trail!!! I guess everyone will be full of energy for Saturday’s miniBB?!

11th October – CSH3 – Sloppy Rod

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Sloppy teamed up with Chuckie to give us a mini-ballbreaker, starting from Huay Tung Thao. The hare brief was anything but brief, but in due time we were set loose. I jogged off with Humps to the first circle. 2 options, right up the hill, or straight along the bottom. I took the route over the hill knowing the two trails rejoined further on. 100m.. nothing, damnit! With a long run ahead, I was loathe to go back, but no one was calling… I kept on a bit further, but still nothing. Finally I heard Cougar calling from down to my right – there must be another trail there. By now I was already over the hill, so made my way down towards the call, and found trail with Cougar running towards me.

A V-check. Towards the army base, or not? I didn’t think we’d be going into the army base, so chose left – and hit the check back. OK, so we were going into the army base and I caught up with the pack at the road. Turning right was unlikely, so I headed for the dam, following Cougar who was running very well. It was a long way, but as we switched from paper to powder, perhaps we missed some trail, but we eventually got trail and jogged passed some soldiers.

The other side of the lake we started off on road that slowly changed to mud trail. Great running trails! We were headed towards Maerim… Shortly we got onto a trail that Sloppy used on 5th December 2011 for the male hash. The checks were pretty much straight on, so Piggy & Brownie led the way as the pack started to stretch out. A V-check caught them out and some how I found myself at the front with HRA. The trail took a sharp turn to the right, and there was the water stop. Strange – why no check? and there was a circle on the tree? So I headed on straight another 100m or so. Nothing, no sounds, no calls, no trail… (Had I gone another 20m around the corner I would have found trail again, but I turned back and found Mr. Poo and Cumlord sitting drinking water at the drink stop.

Damnit… I sped up and at the next check managed to reel in the front group. Taste My Buns was leading the way up heart break mountain a steep climb that was a killer after 5-6km already. No choice but to battle through it, and the front group of 5 were close together. We reached the top, and then found it wasn’t quite the top, and climbed a bit higher. As we turned to the left we had the view of HTT in the distance, and could just about make out the cars and the A-bucket. We started the descent and somehow HRA got away. For a while I was running with Piggy and Brownie slowly reeling in Tasty Buns, with HRA just ahead, and then all of a sudden HRA was gone. Did he switch on the turbo boost? He blasted through all the checks with us trying to figure out where his calls were coming from.

We were getting closer and the trails felt more familiar, although by that point, one waterfall looks like any other. A fly flew straight down my throat and I paused for a moment to gag. The front group disappeared, and as I jogged on past the ranger station, Graven suddenly appeared behind me. I’d not seen him all run, but in true Gravy style he was making his moves towards the end. But there wasn’t enough trail left for him, and we jogged in together.

A GREAT run… It has been a long time since I’ve done a longer hash run – I’ve set a few, but not had the chance to run them, so it was a lot of fun. Cheers hares! Here’s to more miniBBs

2nd October – CH4 – Junglicious

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Junglicious stepped up at short notice to set the run, and she lured Jungle Chim up from Lamphun to help her – it was great to see him back, and hopefully he’ll join us for a few runs every now and then! At HTT, my expectation scale was all over the place – with no sign at the bridge, I was panicking that there wasn’t a run set yet – but when I found signs inside the gate, I was interested to see what they had in store.

The A-bucket, at the side of the lake immediately limited our out trail, and when we set off we were along the lake and over the dam wall. A couple of ‘non-checks’ slowed us down until we got to the first circle the other side of the lake. Knowing the trails well, I set off to the left, and Chuckie followed mumbling about how he would check another way sooner or later…. Not long after we were on trail – we found out later we weren’t supposed to be on that trail. Not long after and there was a circle check, and I followed the trail along the bottom of the mountain (yes I had inside information from Frozen Dick). I was on, and called “OnOn” about the same time CW did… Huh? Had we screwed up? CW was on, but I was definitely ON – it was the right distance, and there was no other way to get here…. I am off wondering if the pack was following me or CW…

Along the base of the mountain to the junction that I just love putting circle checks at. So many options, and NO CHECK! Huh? The trail went straight on, but a quick glance to the left had a bit of paper in the distance… – Did I have time to get there, and around the corner before the pack caught me? With Brown Finger and Pigshit on the hunt, I had no chance… Damn it! They sorted the false trail out without running it out, and caught me up before I got up to the road. We are in to serious hash running season now boys.

Then the checks were all turning left… wtf? We were heading straight back to the A! It can’t be this way, so I started looking off to the right, with no luck. It was straight back to the A. Chuckie called OnIn, and we regrouped to run in… 3km, 20 minutes… Something had gone badly wrong!!!

Browny, Piggy and Tasty were straight off out to do another lap. Chucky was feigning a hangover. I was consulting the hares and figuring out what we’d done wrong. It became clear we could drive around the lake, and still take on the rest of the run. Poo was up for it, and reluctantly Humperdick also came along. Then we had fun! 3 hounds working together. The trail went another 3k along the side of the lake, and back along the aqueduct (fuck it, I spell it aquaduct) system. The last check on our extra bit, there were 2 choices, and me and Poo were wrong – but as both trails rejoined we didn’t go back… On a technicality Humps was the only guy to do the whole trail, so he absolutely deserved the wings.

With hindsight the trail was a great set, but with hashers you have to expect them to fuck up!

25th September – CH4 – Adorable Blue Balls

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“Adorable”? Abominable! The guy’s from Bangkok, never seen a hill before, and wants to use it all in one go?! 😮 We have a new hasher that’s read the Square Rooter book of haring – he probably has a signed copy! And I guess he doesn’t like his new hashing community? >240m elevation gain – the first haring is breaking records!!!

The runsite was new – we’d run there before, but not from that exact spot – I actually thought it would be easier, but it did take me some time to get my head around the exact position I was in… We set off in the direction of the Fire Prevention Centre, and Junglicious and I headed the group with Brownie itching to get running behind us. He’s at a different pace and was clearly frustrated on the narrow trail climbing the hill “can’t we run on this?”. I thought better of it, but he nipped past, only to fall on his face moments later. At last a check. Brownie set off up the hill. Chuckie and I discussed how there was nothing up there – down to the left was more likely… Some ‘spore’ also suggested to the left, so we gave up the high ground, and promptly found plastic rope scouting markings. Lets let BF go a bit higher before we let him know….

ON ON, and back to a familiar hill / ridgeline. Like a 2nd home to Chuckie, he started attacking it. My mood improved when Junglicious past, but I could only follow her for a bit as the pack stretched out up, up, up. Given the way we started, it had to be arcing to the left, so perhaps I could take off some of the hill, so I broke off to the left. I didn’t realise Taste My Buns was behind me, as she chased me into the bushes – retracting quickly when she realised I was attempting a short cut. Attempting, and failing… I’d not been in quite that area before, and for good reason – there was no way through. I had the choice of hacking a way down and out, or up and back to the trail. Reluctantly I chose up, and climbed to where Mr. Poo and Knock Out were.

I looked for every opportunity to cut off to the left, but there wasn’t. When I did come to a check, it was straight on, and paper visible from the check. Finally the “top” was where we intersected a trail and cut back down to the left. The trail would have been alright without the rain, but I was forced to walk for fear of twisting something, and I was quickly dropped from the back. We were heading towards the Ag Center, and I felt the lure of the nice flat trails at the bottom of the mountain. I met Humps, KO and Poo when the trail abruptly turned left, but I opted to head down and after walking up and down hill for so long, finally go for a run at the Ag Centre.

Memorable certainly! Adorable, perhaps not! 😉 I hate the hills!

28th April – CH3 – The Dick Brothers

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How could expectations be high for a run set by 2 dicks (Humperdick and Frozen Dick)
But how could anyone muff a run in the Ob Khan area with sooooo many lovely trails.

Before the hare brief Frozen Dick suddenly had a panic attack about one of the checks (presumably one set buy the other Dick) and he quietly took me aside and explained the check.
There would be a check where the trail would be very hard to find … it would uphill to the left. I got the first 20 checks wrong as they all seemed to fit the description. Eventually I got lucky!

Some nasty evil person tried to sabotage the run by destroying at least three check and quite a few hundred metres of trail. But they underestimated the skill and resourcefulness of this group of hashers. Even the DFL’s didn’t miss beat, and this was nothing to do with the obviousness of where the trail was going! On our arrival back with the news FD immediately deduced it to be a person of Swiss origin who owns three dogs who was the saboteur.

The false trails was strangely omitted from the hare brief. However both of them nicely brought the pack (with the exception of myself who was secretly checking uphill to the left) back together.

Turkish Delight was in an unusually chirpy mood as both Brown Finger and Byte My Yahoo were absent giving him a much better chance of winning. He was later nearly awarded the wings for coming in first but it was decided that he must of short cutted somewhere! So the wings were then passed on to very triumphant Square Rooter. Who, in true hashing spirt, had added a could of kilometres on to his run so as to give TD a chance This extra distance however caused him to arrive back at the “A” from the completely wrong direction.

Liberace was so disillusioned with the run that he created his own and struggled in from yet another direction.

At the circle some half hearted attempt was made at naming a newby hasher who was in a hurry to be named (foolish man), but every one was brain dead mood and nothing came of it.

There was an excellent turnout – considering who the hares were – of about 21 hashers.

Soapy and SR were late arrivals. Soapy should try this more often as in very quick time he was running with the FRB’s – I am sure this had nothing to do with the horrible false trails that happened just before he reached the front.

Lumber Jack Off certainly deserved his Hash Crash award. In addition to the 2 crashes that were reported at the circle there was a magnificent double back flip which was only cut short by a badly placed tree. Hope your back get better.

And the general consensus of the run – excellent – all the practice must be paying off :)

Thanks guys great run.

21st April – CH3 – Turkish Delight

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Rating: 9.5/10 (2 votes cast)

Turkey Turkey Turkey…! With the promise of virgin trail we set off to the depths of the Sameong road, just past where we have had several outstations, including Poo’s wedding. Virgin? We’ll see. The chosen runsite was a random corner off a random backstreet with the intention of a circle in a mosquito infested rice paddy.

In case the run was shit, at least we’d be able to look at Turkey’s artwork on trail with smiley face checks in place of regular circles. We were off, and Belly did his trademark sprint, getting a check or two right, but he was polite enough to let us pass when the trail headed narrowly up the side of a barbed wire fence. From there we went up. Straight up. We were close to some nice trails, but rather than finding and using them, Turkey had chosen to take us straight up the shiggy.

Periodically there were checks, and Brown Finger and Pigshit carried on up calling ahead of me. After an eternity we got to a trail and that was the moment that changed the run. It went from a crappy scramble over terrain that there is a good reason not to run on, to a great run! Around a nice lake, we avoided the skiddy sticks and headed up a bit further, before a great check took us back down. The pack was fractured by here with Graven, Brownie and Piggy joining me on the descent – what will we do next week?

As we got out of the hills, we hit a road and a rice field. I know this place!!! This was Poo’s wedding run!! This was where Chuckie and I ran 5km off trail in desperate search for trail! Beautiful area, great trails, so we went back down the road! Another couple of skiddy sticks to dodge and then a good check that took Brownie and I the wrong way letting Gravy slip past for a 3 out of 3 farewell weekend! Nice running sir!

All in all, a nice set, but I much preferred the downhill over the uphill!

20th April – CH4 – Pigshit

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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!