Tag Archives: Doesn’t Get It

13th August – CSH3 – Shagless & Doesn’t Get It

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Without looking at directions, like a magnet I was drawn toward canal road. Sure enough there were signs to the left and to a brand new runsite. A new runsite, and certainly for me 100% virgin trails. That takes away any advantage I may have! We set off with Belly Dancer doing his trademark (farewell) sprint start… I followed, and he was visibly happy when the first check appeared – I don’t think he would have been sprinting much further. From the first circle I could see paper off to the left, and of course headed over. The 2nd circle, I ducked and spotted paper through the orchard and things were going well early on!

Then we got to some V checks. CW went right on the first V check, and found no check back. The 2nd V check I went left and just ran out of paper, before going back left and also running out of paper. There was much confusion with hashers all over the place. Finally HRA found the trail crawling past a barbed wire post into an orchard. Meandering through an orchard for just a while before returning to the road. On the road I was pretty sure I could see something unusually white in the distance to the right, so set off after HRA, while Sloppy and Buns headed out into the rice fields. I had locked in on definite white paper when finally Sloppy called in the field. Piggy & Turkish were quick enough to follow me rather than go back the long way around, and sure enough we were on paper again. Turkish only wanted to follow feigning no idea what was going on, but I lost him at the next check, as Piggy followed me. Another circle, and I arrived with Piggy – he headed left, and my gut said he was correct. I was very slow checking right. I paused to retie my shoe lace. Looking back, everyone else was also following Piggy to the left, but why hadn’t he called? OK… I jogged forwards and there was the paper… On On and to the Beer stop, just ahead of Bow Wow and Head Hacker, who amazingly had got lucky along the road!

A beer stop, right next to a circle check. A road. Both sides were rice fields, and the hare brief had said only follow the marked burns… Hashers scattered, and I sauntered. Into a little property looked tempting – the kind of place you ask and get permission from! A flash of white on a tree ahead. Sweet! OnOn! The call brought hashers charging from all directions, the GM notably dancing his own route across the burns. Worse still was the Turk and KO, who just said fuck the trail, I’ll trample the rice fields and rejoin further ahead. With Turkish ahead, CW was like a greyhound. Turkish was the short cutting bastard (as usual), but CW couldn’t resist chasing him down like a gazelle chasing a hippo in a weird cartoon. I plodded along and got to another beer stop.

I would like to apologise to the hares, for my bad form here. I didn’t take the 2nd beer and headed off after the leaders like a racist bastard. My behaviour was incorrect, and I regret it. Sadly there were 2 racists ahead of me who also missed out on a comforting beer. I’d rather not talk about the end of the run… the strava flyby says it all… Great run hares – the checks came thick and fast, and were confusing from the start to the last. You definitely caught me out, and if I am running to catch up with Pamela, Sups and Geisha Gash only to catch Belly Dancer at the OnIn, then good job!

30th July – CSH3 – Belly Dancer

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The 1313 run, unlucky for some? What epic nightmares would Belly conjure up for us? After a night at the rustic Cave Lodge, on one of the most uncomfortable beds ever, with barely any sleep, I was probably not best prepared for what was coming. Dodgy guts didn’t help either – I really wasn’t feeling like it! The harebrief required a lot of co-ordination, which just added to the trepidation.

The first bit was perhaps inspired – the irony of 13 water crossings, in honour of 1313 – particularly with our GM’s aversion to getting his feet wet. He dutifully stopped at each to take off his shoes, and socks, and again the otherside to use his towel to dry off before continuing. 13 times was stretching things, and he was a LONG long way behind at the beer stop. So was I though – after staying with the pack for a few checks, I quickly dropped backwards. Shagless joined me, and I think he slowed down to stay with me, as we navigated our way through a quaint little village to the stop.

I very nearly stopped – I just wasn’t feeling it, and although the pack had waited, they set off straight away. I waited with Belly, and another 5-10 mins later CW showed up. We sent him off, and were just heading back to the resort, when I changed my mind and decided to press on. I quickly caught CW up, as he was busily taking his shoes off for another water crossing. We trudged along some concrete paths to the W/R split. Bravely we decided to press on to the Rambo route, and after another KM or so we found the trail leading into a flooded cave. Danger signs all around, this is where we needed the guide, but as he wasn’t waiting for anyone else, he’d already set off. We thought we had heard sounds from up the hill, but couldn’t find paper. No choice but to turn back and do the “Wimp” run – if ever there was an inappropriate name – this was definitely not a WIMP run!

With limited checks it headed up, up, up, up…. Total elevation gain was 545m. This was a hard slog, but CW kindly stayed with me and encouraged me onwards. The checks were kicked out, but we had no way of knowing if people were ahead or behind. To be fair it was all on reasonable trails – I just don’t like the hills, and was feeling really weak. Finally we started descending, but it was slippy some slow going. Up ahead we saw Pamela, Geisha Gash, Wooly Jumper and Doesn’t Get It – seriously? The hares had sent them out on that trail? We caught up with them as we got back to the river. Only there had been a problem. Some of the runners were already back, but as they crossed the river, a dam had burst up stream sending a flash flood down the river – very fast carrying branches etc. We couldn’t cross. Who could have predicted a flash flood? During rainy season? (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Four-provinces-warned-of-flash-floods-landslide-30291684.html) The nearest bridge was around 1km away, and now we were off paper scrambling to find our own ways home…

Exhausted we made it back, the FRBs from the long trail catching us up, and Scooby kindly bought some drinks at a local shop to help us home. An epic nightmare!

Woke up this morning for the hangover run – 3.5km, with only 1 runner brave enough to set off on another BD challenge!

23rd June – CH4 – Anything

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When Anything teams up with Chilly Pussy we never know what to expect – fortunately it is mushroom season, so they may have cut the run shorter to gather more mushrooms! We set off and my inhaler had no puff, so I would have to be careful about my asthma – damnit! Second check and there were 2 parallel trails, at least I thought they were parallel, and got to learn the hard way that they weren’t – CW got the right trail, I took the left, and wrong one. I could easily have cut across to join him, but was confident my lovely trail met his just around the corner. I was wrong. Horribly wrong.

Finally I managed to cut back across and found trail at the back with Cougar, Doesn’t Get It and Bobble Head. Having gone up the wrong hill, I then had to work my way up another hill. There was Toe Jam going the wrong way. I slowly picked off runners by sticking on the nice trail, that was 10m to the left of the scramble the hares had marked. Past Tiptoe, who was mixing it with the ladies… There was Obscene, and Cumalot… And then Kwazi, Shagless & Does Nothing. I kept it steady, but slowly reeled people in.

And then when the trail finally broke left there was 2.5km without checks to get back. I had a glimpse of ABB & Motorboat ahead and later Barbindoll, but was forced to take it steady to control my breathing. Damnit – these are great running trails, I just want to run! Even Kwazi started to close me down towards the end, but I wasn’t going to allow that humiliation! Nice set from a kind and gentle Anything!

Fly By

26th January – CSH3 – Frozen Dick

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Frozen Dick has a unique way of advertising his runs and one way or another… This time he chose “my” area past Doi Saket, and through various conversations over the week he’d mentioned “blue spirit houses” and a couple of other unique landmarks that gave me a damn good idea of the general route of the run – having set a bunch of runs there and previously scouting all the trails (and non-trails) around there, I was confident I knew all the permutations…

We set off with Angry Inch on my tail – literally – he followed me through the first couple of checks until I guessed one wrong – there were 2 main ways to get up onto the mountain, and the hare chose the other one. No matter, we headed back to the road and Angry Inch was lost soon at a check when he went through barbed wire to a trail to nowhere. Shortly further on the other trail into the mountain was on the right, but the trail continued down the road – hmmm… Go for it boys, I turned to Chuckie and we swiftly avoided a false trail and set off up to the hill.

There was a circle check and CW trusted me when I told him it was up the hill to a parallel trail – sure enough we got to powder, and then a circle. This time he didn’t trust me, and while I checked left, he went back to the right. I called “On” but didn’t see him again. I jogged along, simply enjoying running the trails that I’d set as a hare before, but never run. I found the hare’s knife, and spent the rest of the run with it open as I couldn’t figure out how to close it.

Around the ridge we came to the spirit house and down to the creek bed. The circle check there is ingenious – if you don’t know about the trail that runs just a bit further along the creek. Sadly for FD I knew where we were and the likes of Sloppy Rod, Graven Image, Skid Mark and Horny Monkey came straight along the creek following my calls – leaving an unbroken circle for CW to figure out.

The rest of us FRBs were onto the trail behind the mountain – a great running trail! Hard to set checks, as ‘straight’ is the obvious choice. With Sloppy and Graven around 100m behind they kicked out the checks each time I called them, until we reached the inevitable “skiddy sticks” hybrid check, complete with my own powder bottle! I could have set a new trail, but played the game and went back to mark the way over the ridge.

Another couple of checks were straight on with Sloppy snapping at my heels and Graven licking his chops. We hit the fence and though I’d been there a bunch of times I wasn’t sure – left and then right, or right and then left? Bugger… Sloppy slipped away to the left and I hooked up with Graven, Horny Monkey and Skid Mark for the final moments.

That’s my story of the run… It seems other people had many different stories behind me – Mr. Poo sloping off with Doesn’t Get It to make sure she does… Unplugged slipping away with Angry Inch to see if the extra angry inch is worth it… Big Top lagging behind with Redundant Semen to ??? who knows what they were up to, but it took a while for them to get back with FD needing to separate them.

10th November – CSH3 – Square Rooter

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Is Square Rooter finally mellowing in his old age? He chose a run site with a great view out over some rolling hills, rather than at the bottom of a steep mountain. With positive comments about the run being passed around in advance, we set off with the returning Horny Monkey picking up the first check.

The 2nd circle had us foxed for a while, the trail continuing across the road and through a blocked gate across the field. Duly delayed the pack was together as we ambled up to the ridge line and along the top. There Square Rooter had invented a brand new check – a circle with trail leading in 2 directions, with one trail just stopping. It was Doesn’t Get It that led us nowhere and later Skiddy that found the true trail. By this time I was half a kilometer away at the bottom of the hill. I made attempts to get back, but in the end skirted up the road and intercepted Skiddy as he came down the trail.

With Poo in hot pursuit we hit some fantastic running trails that we could really open up on. With these trails Square Rooter was really spoiling us! From nowhere Skiddy appeared in front of me at a V check – he’d found some cunning short cut. The trail then took us off in a pointless loop back to a few yards from the check back I’d already seen. Beautiful Box, Unplugged, Sticky Wicket and Big Top were all seen passing through the check back and joining the front pack for a slog up the steep hill where the hare was grinning like a toothless fairy.

HRA took a turn at the front only to get the last check wrong, and it was Sloppy Rod that lead the way (IN FLIP FLOPS FFS) down the stony path back to the A. That was a really, really nice run.