The GM teamed up with his wife for a run from the football field – since they have a car, Mr. Poo has been adventurously exploring further away from Wat Umong and the Boy Scout Camp. I arrived in timely fashion, scarcely able to collect the money and then chasing to catch up the pack as they already set off. I grabbed some water, but as I later found out, it wasn’t enough…
A couple of good checks early on before we crossed the road and paralleled the hills. Another check left HRA leading the pack up into the hills. A gentle incline that HRA was happy to scamper up, as was Gorf who quickly passed me, and then Piggy who overtook in a much more gentlemanly fashion. A long stretch, up hill with few checks. Fortunately it was a great trail, but the heat was getting to me, coupled with the hill.
Finally at a circle check the trail headed down – but having climbed for a couple of km, we wiped that out in 100m downhill, before starting another ascent – continuous, upwards at a gradient just too steep for me to try running, but seemingly nothing for HRA (the mountain goat), gorf and piggy. I was relegated to running with Turkey and I wasn’t feeling good! At one point Turkey sloped off to the right, only to reappear slightly ahead – sneaky bastard – maybe he’s onto something? I tried sloping off to the right, and despite confusing HRA, I ended up the wrong side of a deep gully.
Check the watch, only about 3km in, and I was spent. Hot, thirsty, knackered… I got to the road and decided to straight line back down the road, managing to get back before passing out. Not sure what went wrong for me, but the heat killed me. The trail was great, but I am way out of shape at the moment…