(By Alice)
After Thursday’s run, I was keen to see if Softballs had been advised how we set checks and if he’d vary the trail or change it much. No and yes.
On the good side, he’d scouted again and set a well balanced run both sides of the road and including some new territory for me.
On the negative side, his mentor had neglected to inform him that Vs require paper marking 2 trails, one to a Checkback and one which continues; and circles don’t have more than one trail marked at 60-100m one of which goes to a False Trail sign after 150-250m. A classic mix of walker, newbie hare and alternative hash procedures..
Actually I don’t care if he marks like that but the hare has to TELL the pack because it’s not our regular way. I do care when the mentor tries to override me asking the hare to EXPLAIN his markings. Showing us signs we all know doesn’t help any, unless he explains how he’s marked it and how they work.
It also didn’t help that there were NO HHH signs anywhere when I, Tiptoe and AnalVice rocked up off the Mae Jo Rd. Tiptoe was waiting in high dudgeon yelling at me there were no fff signs! I felt his anguish. AnalVice was parked down a turning having explored all the way to the dam. He did find TWO ON IN sings which is one less than last run, but they were pointing in different directions. Christ O’Reilley.
About 4:20 the hare arrives at the shelter to the RIGHT of the road and affixes HHH. He’s about 30 minutes too late. Luckily he put HHH on the second U turn a few minutes before the songthaeo rocked up. Obviously the mentor also neglected to inform him about timely setting of HHH. The devil is in the detail but these are easy do’s if advised properly.
Softballs paper on trail is clear and properly sized, facing the right way, as are his few checks. Last run had 3 checks I think and we maybe had 5 this run? Let the runners run, indeed.
At one point we hit a circle, after nearly half the run, perhaps our first? Brownfinger and Alice traipsed up the hill towards obvious paper at 60m. Pretty sus. OnOn was called straight along from the check so BF returned to that trail.
Alice followed paper into the forest for a very good 100m before a very clear FT but no bar. Throwing caution to the winds he yomped up and over the forested ridge to intercept trail on the other side. Result. A flash of Browny thru the trees and Mr Poo jogging along. Nice being back in contact after a few 100m forest silence.
Emma Roide made the early running and the middle running and the end running. We have a new addition to the FRB ranks! Usual FRB Scooby was suffering some illness so took the W option and appeared on the road for the long Tarmac last km. I had 6.9km and others around 7.2km. Quality trail, just get the HHH up in time and set standard checks – or explain hare’s version thereof. And Superman turned up late into proceedings with the usual guff about poor signage – also pulling out that excuse for the BB – and Graven was having none of that tosh!