Two sprints and a sticky quiz

Sex (S)printer is setting both the runs this weekend. First up is Saturday's SH3 run for which the details are:
Songkhla Hash House Harriers' run #1845, Saturday 29th October 2016, 4:30 p.m.
Hare: Sex Sprinter and friends
Misdirections: From the Kao Seng intersection take the old Yala road for 16k and turn right before Wat Khun Thong, then go 1k and turn left to the run site.
From Hatyai, get to the Tha Kham intersection and take the road East for about 6k to the big tree, then go straight ahead towards Wat Khun Thong for 2.5k and turn right into the run site.
Sunday's (30th October) HH3 run will be from Superpig's house behind the abattoir on Poonakan Road: From Wat Keow Kloy go about 10k down Poonakan and turn left into Soi 10 for about 200m to the runsite on the left. From the turn off Kanjanawit Road at the bottom of Poonakan, Soi 10 is about 1k up and the turn is on the right.
Before all that there is a quiz night at the Office Bar on Friday (28th October) evening at 8:00 p.m. for which the quiz master will be Stick Insect. The hash team is hoping to attract a defection from amongst the ranks of the opposition to fill the hole left by SI, but all comers are welcome.

Saturday's track

Here, courtesy of Beavershot, is a track of Saturday's long run which got up to just over 200 meters and was 7.5k as the Beaver runs. Impressive use of the countryside by the hares; so impressive that a number of alleged FRB's were reduced to the short run at HH3 yesterday!

Men with sheep (and today's HH3 misdirections)

No comment necessary, but what about that T shirt!

Today's HH3 runsite is on the road heading up Kao Long: From Hatyai get to the Tha Kham crossroads and head East towards Sai Kao for 5.4k. Turn left a under the three quarters-built temple arch and go 600m then take the left fork for a further 1k to the run site on the right. From Songkhla, the quickest route is from the old Yala road on the road that goes past Wat Kao Lam (right at 11.8k from the Kao Seng intersection, or 1k South of the Ang Thong Junction of the new and old Yala roads). Follow the road for about 4k including across 2 crossroads and as it bends gracefully through 2 villages, then at the junction with the Kao Long road turn right for 1k to the run site on the right.

Men without goats

SH3 celebrated its midlife crisis in style yesterday, starting with an excellent A-to-B run followed by one of our biggest circles in recent years, thanks to our Samui H3 visitors. Then there was food and drink aplenty, carrying on till midnight for the hardcore. Really the only thing lacking were the promised farm animals. Apparently the resort had the good sense to lock them away for the duration. Here are a few shots from a somewhat impaired photographer.

The Hatyai and Songkhla GMs oversee the beer supply.

Two of the three hares return from their lay.

The Conebrain family arrives.

The serious drinking begins.

Short Screw licks the Knob.

Sex Black Man, or as Yardstick calls him, Black Sex Man.

Men without goats . . . it's not a pretty sight.

Bus-ted

The hares have announced that tomorrow's birthday runs (both of them) will be A-B so we will be departing from the run site at 4:30 p.m. sharp and borrowing our guests big green disco bus to get to the A sites. Therefore if you intend to join either the short or the long runs, please try to get to the restaurant a bit before 4:30 so as not to miss the transport.

For those not intending to run, the restaurant are very happy that we hang out there and take advantage of their facilities (but that doesn't include taking advantage of the goats, In-u-endo!) The circle will follow the runs, probably at around 6:00 p.m.and dinner will be served at 7:00 p.m.

Incidentally, our guests from Koh Samui H3 will be around town tonight so if you see them say hello and make them welcome.

SH3's 35th Birthday

This week's run is Songkhla Hash's 35th birthday run and will take place at Suan Ahan Gor, a Goat! (กรกช) and is open to all comers.

Gor, a goat! Blow up of the petting
zoo for those with a goaty inclination

There will be a run, dinner, tasteful entertainment and free booze  and a haute couture addition to your hash wardrobe designed by Yves St. Oeuf. Regular SH3 members who have done at least 5 runs in the last year will pay 250 Baht (kids, 150), or 400 Baht for named runners with less than 5 runs to their name this year (kids 250 Baht or 150 without a T shirt). Guests and new runners are 700 Baht (kids 400) but anyone up for naming on the day gets to pay only 400 Baht. Got all that?

Details are:
Songkhla Hash House Harriers' run #1844, Saturday, October 22nd, 2016, 4:30 p.m.
Hares: Throbbin' Hood, Pee Wee and Olive Oyle
Misdirections: From the dreaded Ko Yo intersection take the new Hatyai road for 7.5k and turn left into the entrance to the restaurant. To avoid the Ko Yo intersection, which is likely to be bunged up as usual, take the lake road out of Songkhla and at the traffic lights at Songkhla Hospital, go straight ahead, then follow the road for about 3k onto the New Hatyai road. Do a U turn immediately and follow the NHR west for 5.1k to the restaurant on the left.

From Hatyai, take Lopburi Ramesuan Road for 11k from the Big C turn off and do a U turn (beyond the restaurant which is on the right hand side of the road). Come back 850m and turn left into the restaurant.

The beer truck will be operating as usual if you don't fancy driving and will leave the Hot Bread Shop at 3:00 p.m. There will also be a bus load of guests from Koh Samui Hash joining us, so anyone wanting to return to Songkhla after the party should be able to hitch a ride back on their bus.

Sunday's HH3 hare is Sex Printer but details of the whereabouts are currently unknown, i.e. if we were told we've forgotten, and will be added to this post later.

The close ties between exercise and beer

From the New York Times, further evidence that exercise and beer are made for each other. For their latest study, scientists used lab rats rather than hashers (they're better behaved) and discovered an interaction between running and drinking that we already know about:

". . . while the animals’ brains responded similarly to the two activities, they did not respond identically, the past studies show. There are aspects of reward processing related to exercise that differ from reward processing related to drinking, and those differences may help to explain why, if given the opportunity, animals will avidly engage in both running and ethanol sipping. The resulting neurological high appears to be generally more pervasive and lasting than with either activity alone."

Read the whole article here.

Just make it stop

Just 5.5km and under 400m of ascent. That doesn't sound so bad, does it? Don't believe it!

Whenever Robocop describes one of his runs as "wing sabaai" we know we're in trouble, but nobody could have guessed just how tortuous yesterday's effort would be. It was on Hatyai's nastiest hill, for a start, and apart from a couple stretches of actual running (visible at the bottom and middle right above), it consisted entirely of ridiculously steep ascents immediately followed by even steeper descents. And repeat, then repeat again. The man is clearly a freak of nature and feels neither pain nor fatigue so he has no idea what he's doing to us. At least it was in keeping with the current ban on entertainment: there wasn't as much as a moment of pleasure.

About half the long runners found excuses not to do the whole thing, including Sex Sprinter and Tsunami, who totally lost the plot while attempting to shortcut, and Khai Jiao, who was chasing down his new dog, who was clearly no more keen to do this run than the rest of us. In the end barely a half dozen of us came in on paper, the first (Sex Black Man) in 1:26.

In retrospect there was a kind of perverse majesty to it, and as so often, a hellish run made for an excellent circle. For the children there was broad physical humor, like Robocop's epic fart on the ice. For the adults, salacious references to Sex Sprinter's "favorite resort" and Robocop's "business trip" to Bangkok next weekend. Somehow you don't expect these kinds of things to be aired in front of the whole hash, including wives, some of whom were not looking totally amused. But then I'll never understand Thais.

Today's HH3 run and SH3's birthday run.

In case you missed it at yesterday's SH3 run, today's HH3 run is somewhere down the Ban Nai Lai road: from Wat Keow Kloy take Poonakan for about 7.5k and turn left then follow the road until you see a sign (on the left?). From the Kanjanawanit junction with Poonakan it is 3.5k and a right turn. The run starts at 4:00 p.m.

Also, next week's SH3 35th birthday run will take place as planned next Saturday. More details will be posted/sent out early in the week.

Twisted long & simple short

The long run (in green) measured about 7.5km including false trails and checkbacks (3 of which you can see here at the first check). Total ascent was roughly 350m. First runners back in 1:09. The short run (in red) was about 4.5km.

Despite my best efforts to lay a run which wouldn't lose anyone, a late-arriving Khan Khai and two friends made the mistake of asking All Black which paper to follow for the short run. It is unclear whether AB answered incorrectly or if there was just some kind of communication problem, but in any case the latecomers went in search of squares, which were in fact the long run. So they ended up out in the dark for a bit, until sensibly they just turned around and came back the way they'd gone out. The lesson here is that if you don't hear the hare himself say it, there's no assurance you're going to be on the right paper.

Anyhow it was a fine turnout of 50+ runners, and both the runs and the Isaan food, including som tam prepared on the spot by Temporary Relief and Handjob, got good reviews. Evidently the true hardcore eater/drinkers carried on to Thung Jaeng.