A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Here it is, in all its evil glory: run 1494 – the monster that ate Softcock!

Shame really; it looked good in the pre-planning stages, tortuously wracked from the memory of at least 4 previous runs and as Rotten Johnny so perceptively commented, bolted together so you could almost not see the joins. Yes, there was nothing we haven’t done before, although a couple of the tacky bits used to stick the trails together were a bit, well… tacky. But basically if you took the last weeks run, the last birthday run, run 1489 from the back end of last year and bits of a couple of other runs which have all happened with living memory, there it was! Six kilometers of fairly typical hill trails with the odd bit of shiggy and a pretty steep descent to get us back onto the flat; seven checks, three of which the hare had to take a hand in breaking and five false trails of which only one had the effect of reversing the order which was unfortunate since all the FRB’s were at that time at the back of the pack!

So why did it take an hour and a half for the first runner to get home and why did it reduce Softcock to a quivering wreck, plucked from peril by the late arriving Knob Gobbling performing the sweeping job that the two hares so miserably failed between them to perform?

A good question. It certainly wasn’t a problem with length, because 6k is by no stretch of the imagination cruel nor unusual (and in case anyone doubts the measurement, the yellow box on the picture above has sides of 1.5k, i.e. a sum of 6k).

Perhaps it was excessively hilly? Hardly. The top point we reached was 231 meters from a starting altitude of 36 meters above sea level with a total ascent of 364 meters, and lest you think that the hills must have added substantially to the length, let me assure you that a quick application of Pythagorus’ theorem will confirm that the difference is less than 50 meters!

Perhaps the country was unusually difficult. Oh come on! apart from two brief essays into country which had been extensively secateured during setting to ensure that it did not constitute an uncomfortable experience for the hounds, the whole run was on trails!

Or maybe the checks were too difficult? Certainly the second, third and sixth checks between them must have added about 15 minutes to the run and perhaps the other four together may have added 10 minutes, but the F’s barely inconvenienced the front runners, although cumulatively the effect was to ensure that at the sixth check at least the whole pack excluding Softy and Knob Gobbling were together.

But whatever it was it was the hares’ fault and the faint praise they were accorded on the ice should serve as a warning to future hares: we’re getting on a bit, our joints and tendons are not an elastic commodity capable of soaking up punishment indefinitely.

Bleeeehhhhh! Bunch of wimps!

For the record, Ding Dang returned and Knob Gobbling subbed; Chao Ngor and Egghead got 500 run shirts and Peppered Pussy and Jump Shot were annointed as sinners for failing to return plates after gorging themselves. Sex Sprinter was punished for prospecting for paper in anticipation of an F and Egghead (again!) was reprimanded for nanny-haring having jumped to the conclusion that Rotten Johnny was about to break the 4th check and begun re-laying paper when the poor short sighted sod couldn’t find the paper under his feet! The hares were Egghead and Only a Yolk. Then it was On! On! to the Parlang to say a fond farewell to Kag as our Hash Bar host.