Anything & Chilly Pussy – a haring partnership with history and reputation… Which hares would we get today? The kind friendly ones, or the evil ones? The songthaew was late so we would have to wait to find out. CMU graduation adds traffic to the roads, so Knock Out & Chuckie were even later setting off. Either way 10 mins or so late we set off, and Brownie urged me to run from the start.
The first check, a V-check, and I turned right towards the hills – before I got to the corner I saw the check back, and reluctantly chugged back to the main trail, and spent a while passing the pack. I caught up just in time for the next check – a circle. I got there with enough time to check almost straight on a promising trail. It looked so promising that I jogged off anticipating paper, only to be called back to the right. Ugh!
Again I was mid pack, busting a gut to get back into the midst. Finally I got some luck. The trail was clearly marked off to the left into a field, and hashers were heading in that direction, while Cuckold wasn’t convinced – he went straight and when I got there, he said, but there is paper here too…. 😀 False trail to the left, On on straight, lets run! Yup, I could see a circle check ahead, and this time it would be to the right. But the paper took me a while to find, but I headed up the hill with Brownie pounding along behind me. The next circle had the crafty FRB following me claiming he could see paper up ahead. I saw nothing, but sure enough we were right, and I was running at the front with Brownie.
He pushes me along… With an encouraging “Shall we run a bit here”, in response to my panting “this is up hill…” I know he could take off and run away from me, but politely he jogs along, toying with me! Had I not been at the front, I would probably have eased off, but the encouragement helped, and I pressed on. Finally a check – there could have been so many more checks, but at last we got one. I had outlasted BF, and got first pick. I chose left, and sure enough there was paper. I pressed on, and soon enough there was someone behind, this time it was Graven. Amicably encouraging me along again. OK, I know you could easily run past me!
I was doing what I could, but there just weren’t enough checks to mix things up, and sure enough Brownie was back panting behind us before we got to another check. A V check, and Graven did some strategic FRBing, following me up the “obvious” route, which turned out to be correct, and leaving poor Brownie to check off to the left. We couldn’t call on, and as we climbed the ridge, it seemed as though it was just the two of us broken from the front. We hit the ridgeline, and no check… Ack! Graven, politely running on my tail, dodging the trees that I uprooted and tore down. I need a check… please give me a check…! Graven thought there was a check, but instead it was just a larger piece of paper… Where were the checks??? Finally we got a circle check – it turned out to be the last check, and for me a 50/50.
My choice, I picked right, leaving Graven the steep downhill to the left. I jogged along, and… meh… nothing… Not looking good, but silence from behind (over and ridge into a gully, it is unlikely that voices would carry far. And then there was paper! and another bit of paper! But hashers just to my right chatting as they walked up the hill. This wasn’t the right paper, this was definitely wrong – the hares had left it by mistake when they changed their trail… I wasn’t going to call, but by now I was at the bottom of the hill. I figured I’d jog around the hill rather than climb back over it, and all the FRBs were home by the time I got there! Still a great run, it just could have done with a few more checks!