“Remember its growing season and grass is long and prickly in parts.” – a underestimated warning! Back to Maejo – fantastic! I love running those trails – what would Piggy put together? We set off and Turkish went wrong before we found the first paper, but I got the first check wrong and was stranded behind the walkers on overgrown trails for a while. The beauty of these trails is that every check is a lottery, and that being the case, Mr. Poo should buy some tickets… He was nailing everything – including the time Turkish and I followed him, saw him bend down to look at something, before turning back to follow a miscall – he bought himself some time there before accelerating up the hill towards the Tiger’s Head.
Seriously Poo couldn’t put a foot wrong, and each time he was running at a pace that forced me to check the wrong way at all the checks! We got the the main “5-way” junction. I guessed it might break right, and was wrong, as again Poo got it right heading further up the ridge. I walked on the inclines, and tried to jog on the flats, praying to myself that we would turn left soon, and not go to the top! Sure enough, there was the left turn, and it clearly caught TMB & Poo out, so we started the descent with HRA leading the way. Poo was right on my tail – every freaking step pounding as if he was going to run straight through me. It was mostly downhill, so let gravity do the work, with Poo still on my ass, I stepped past HRA. The trail randomly ducked off to the left, on a smaller trail, only to rejoin the main trail moments later. It was a blur, I was focused, and kept pressing on.
Around another corner, and there was silence behind me… Maybe I missed a false trail, but was in the zone following paper around the corner and down the hill. The hares hid a circle check off to the right, and somehow Turkish slipped past with TMB even though I was second guessing the hares. Another check and I followed Turkish, until TMB called OnOn from the right – “Come back Turkish!” – to no avail, he was on his own now… I went back and ran on behind Poo, HRA and Billy Goat Buff. Another couple of checks and we emerged at the square lake. Not hard to guess where it was going from here. TMB was already in the opposite corner calling the circle check, so I started checking and sure enough found trail. This was definitely a case of finding the right trail at the right time!
Some excellent trails, and some great checks that kept the lead turning over – great job hares! Plus we got a circle from KO with our illustrious GM following up on business interests in Cambodia. Is it an apprenticeship?