The HH3 New Year's bash

Some people took "fancy dress" seriously.

Others took a less classical approach.

King Tsunami and his retinue.

Handjob's schoolgirl uniform attracted admirers.

Ebony and ivory.

But Perky, how do you really feel about karaoke?

Talok from Sex Sprinter and Robocop.

HJ is dragged up on stage for some kind of announcement.

The pussy table, er, dirt floor.

Egghead goes for the jugular.

City Tits rocks out.

Khii Leum rocks out.

HJ freaks out.

Perky and R2D2 freak out.

Mai sabai!

Announced as a 'wing sabai' with no hills, Sunday's run proved to be anything but that. The version above includes Kii Leum's little diversion off paper (possibly the big loop in the bottom right hand corner of the run) but even without that it was about 8k. And as can be seen from the profile below there was a lot of up, albeit that none of it was much over 150m.
But fair dos to the hares, apart from losing Sex Printer and allowing Moo Sahb to complete an outrageous short cut across the middle of the run, everybody got round before dark despite some inconsistency in the paper which flummoxed even co-hare Sex Racing and sent Kii Leum off on his travels.

Change of HH3 runsite

The HH3 runsite for this afternoon has been changed (the original runsite is inaccessible). The new location is in the road before the turning off Poonakan leading to the meditation center (or coming from Hatyai the second turning on the right after Wat Tungnai). Exact directions from Songkhla are:

From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 8k (to Wat Kew Kloy) then turn right (into Poonakan) for 4.7k. Turn left at the hash sign and follow the road for 500 meters to the runsite on the left.

Tough pussy

 ...total ascent 340m, first runners home in 1 hour 20. Throbbin' Hood and Mel were the last runners in on foot in about an hour and a half, Kee Ling made it home on the back of a motorbike just as it was getting dark. The short runners going backwards up the in-trail covered 3.6k if they made it up to the swish new sala just before F9 which was at 133m with an ascent of about 100m. Not too many complaints and most people were still there at 8:00 p.m. finshing off the beer from Thursday's Christmas party.

The pussy's out of the bag

Yeh, it's the end of the world!
Blah! Blah! Blah!
But the conspiracy theorists will have a heyday this weekend when the latest pussy run is revealed as being just a thinly veiled attempt by Egghead to complete his domination of the run setting statistics this year. Heh! Heh! Heh! (evil eggomaniacle chuckle).

Actually, with the weather having been so appalling this week and bits of tomorrow's run likely to have proved challenging for the ladies, in an act of mercy and in order to guarantee that the run will be swept and that there will be some food afterwards, the laying duties have been divided and the run details therefore read:
Songkhla Hash House Harriers' run #1749, Saturday 27th December 2014, 4:00 p.m.
Hares: (From) Crackwurst, Only a Yolk, Peppered Pussy, Meals on Wheels, Temporary Relief, Hand Job, Ork Dork, Egghead, Ma Mick and Harram
Misdirections: From the Ko Yo intersection take the new Yala road for 3.5k to the runsite on the left.

It's the last run of the year so try and come along and swell the numbers.

HH3, seeking to build on their well received run last weekend. have switched hares and this week's final Hatyai outing of the year will be set by Robocop and Sex Racing from near the Kuan Samroot meditation center (From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and run left for 8k. Turn right (at Wat Keow Kloy into Poonakan) for about 5k and turn left just before Wat Tungnai then go 2.2k. Turn left onto the road signposted Maditation Center and go about 1.2 k to the runsite).

Also, don't forget that the HH3 New Year's party will happen on 30th December (Tuesday) at Buk Toy's yard (from the Ko Yo intersection go along the OHR for about 11.5k to the traffic lights at Ko Mii and do a U turn. come back 500m and the entrance to the yard (which you probably won't be able to get into) is on the left. Sponsors are being sought for food, beer and karaoke, well in fact just about everything so be generous, HH3 have no money (apparently!)

End of the world?!

It's 7:30 pm. on a Friday and not even a hint of any run tomorrow. Could this be . . . the end?!

The boys done better!

Two remarkable things about the picture above. First of all, yesterday's HH3 run, the third in a row set by Sex Si, Sex of the Man and Sex Something or other (Ting Tong at SH3), turned out to be a million times better than expected and was in fact probably one of the best HH3 runs in living memory. Starting from the big sala behind the CP factory, the run headed left and began a fairly traditional ascent up the hill to the left side of the quarry face. But then somewhere along the line, the hares managed to head up even further until the track came out on the ridge, allowing us to run up the back of the big hill where they laid on the beer stop to beat all beer stops. Then they managed to find their way down into the valley which leads out of the hills and back onto the well-worn trail back to the runsite. The whole thing including the beer stop must have taken about an hour and a quarter, but was actually only 5.3k. The top was just under 250m from a starting point of 23m so the total ascent was probably also in the region of 250m as once we hit the top it was pretty much downhill all the way. A good circle followed at which the joint birthdays of Sex Si and Sex of the Mango (a.k.a. Short Screw) were celebrated and all the free beer donated for the occasion was drunk.
The other remarkable thing about the picture above is that the track was provided by.... Kii Leum! Move over Yardo, there's a new GPS kid on the block!

Wet beaver

For some reason my GPS didn't record the run as set yesterday (I did it then for fear there would be too much rain today), but here's a recce from a couple days before that's about 95% accurate.

The predicted downpour kindly held off . . . well, till about 4:20 pm., by which time we were underway. The run was roughly 7km long with 365m total ascent, and took the front runners 1:02 by Jim's watch (or maybe 1:20, according to Short Screw, who came in at the front too). We've run on the near side of that hill before but the ridge and back side felt new (to me anyway) and no one can complain that there wasn't enough running, or beer, or rain.

Circle called off on account of post-run attrition and general wet and cold, but I'm proud to say that a small band of pissheads stayed on for many beers more. On-on!

Season's greetings from TOS

Angkor Empire Marathon 2015

OK, here is everything you need to know about the Angkor Empire Marathon this coming August.

The event takes place on Sunday, 9 August 2015. You have your choice of four runs:

     Marathon (42km, $65)
     Half marathon (21km, $60)
     10km ($55)
     3km family run ($35)

Registration is open from 1 Jan. to 25 July. (Above prices are for Jan.-June. They go up a bit if you wait till July.) Most of us seem to be interested in the half marathon, on the principle that a full marathon would be too much but 10km isn't enough if we're going all that way. The half starts at 6 am. so we should be done in time for Sunday brunch.

HJ and I will be getting there a day or two early to make sure everything is organized, but for the rest of you I would suggest flying Hatyai-Siem Reap (10:50-15:45) on Friday, 7 Aug. and then returning on Monday, 10 Aug (12:15-17:00). Those are the most efficient Air Asia flight times, i.e. with the minimum stopover in Bangkok, and can be purchased as a package -- you don't need to book separate Hdy-Bkk and Bkk-SR tickets. Current price is about B3500 each way.

The above schedule allows us to have a night on the town on Friday, a day touring Angkor on Saturday, and then the run on Sunday, probably followed by another afternoon/evening of post-run revelry. Siem Reap is a great party town, with very good food and excellent cheap fresh draft beer, "Angkor" brand of course.

So if you're up for this, and I know that at least a half dozen or so of us definitely are, here is all you need to do:

1) Go to http://www.angkorempiremarathon.org/index.php any time after 1 Jan. and register for whatever run you want.

2) Book your flights at http://www.airasia.com. If for any reason the above dates and times don't suit you, then we'll need to get together and discuss them, assuming people want to travel together.

3) Once you're on for sure, tell me so I can book rooms at the hotel. I've got a good place in mind and will check availability as soon as I know the rough numbers. It'll be about $35/night for a double room. I'll also arrange local transport: to Angkor and back on Saturday and to the runsite and back on Sunday. The party district of town -- and it's big -- is walkable from the hotel.

Any questions?

The simplified version

Ahem . . . while I stand in admiration of the additions, annotations, and cultural notes that our Misdirectionalist photoshopped onto the map I sent him this afternoon, for anyone who wants just the bits relevant to Saturday and might be easily confused by anything extra (I'm talking to you, KL), here is what it looked like before Egghead worked his magic on it.

P.S. The current weather forecast is for the rather gigantic storm system now over the Gulf to reach us just in time for the weekend, with about 60mm of rain expected on Saturday alone. To put that into perspective, that's more than an average month's worth of rain for London. It's gonna be wet and wild and have I got the run for you! On-on!

A brief guide to Beaver's subconscious

Thanks to Saturday's hare for this carefully annotated map giving full details of the run site and the historical background to the area as well as a hint of what is to come in the future. Exciting stuff!

For those who prefer not to delve into the murky depths of Beaver's mind, here are the details as provided:

Songkhla Hash House Harriers' run #1748, Saturday December 20th 2014, 4:00 p.m.
Hare: Beavershot
Misdirections: Sorry, don't know the distance from the OHR but it's 2.2km past Wat Khao Kloi, then turn left and go 2.2km. Note that just after this left turn we usually bear left following the main village road, but on Saturday you'll need to go right there.
Whoops! Ahem: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 10.2k, then turn left and bear right at the Y junction after 200m and follow the road/track for a further 2.2k to the runsite.

HH3 on Sunday is anticipated as being from the big sala behind the CP factory (From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 6k and turn right for about 1k to the runsite on the right. Hares: you don't want to know! (Ok, we don't know, you don't need to!) 

The boys done good!

No more secrets! Here are today's hares, who as Beavershot notes below set a pretty good run. On a day when any sensible hasher was curled up with a good book (or, if they were lucky, a bad woman - were you lucky Sticky?) and despite some misgivings after last week's less than spectacular run, the boys delivered. 

We can forgive them the first gratuitous hill climb which did not portend well, and even the last pointless loop away from the runsite, which the cogniscenti rejected in favor of a visit to the half-beer stop (only 3 cans left which Beaver, Egg and Leum Kii snapped up before  Moo Sahb followed in their tracks to find the cupboard bare). In between there was an interesting exploration of the less well-used side of the hill culminating in a welcome beer stop next to a torrential waterfall, followed by the third climb of the day and a descent which should have ended at the run site, but for some unknown reason didn't.

But all in all a big improvement on last week making the afternoon worthwhile for those who ignored the appalling weather and alternative literary attractions.

Beer, the answer to most of your problems

So here is 1747: 5.8k, max height 81m, total ascent 120m, 1 hr 25 mins or so. Which only tells half the story as it says nothing about the fact that the long and short runners between them consumed 2+ cases of beer during the run and were thereafter very happy. Are we missing something here?

Does beer make you see double?

Back in the mists of time - well May this year actually, on a weekend when we had nothing much else to do, as HH3 had nicked half the hash for an outstation run, the remaining dozen or so hardcore SH3'ers proved that running and beer really do go together - at the same time!

This was the run where the first runners home were Mucky Pup and Square Peg; where the short runners did the whole run but the long runners accepted a lift home from the last beer stop, at which the first runner to arrive was Gan Yao! In short it turned the hash upside down!

So this Saturday, as a sort of warm up for the festive season which is almost upon us, the format will be repeated from a slightly different venue and with a completely different run.  Details are:

Songkhla Hash House Harriers run #1747, Saturday December 13th, 2014; 4:00 p.m.

Hares: Egghead and Harram

Misdirections: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4k and turn left. Follow the road for 5.2k (bearing right with the road after 4k) then turn LEFT opposite the temple arch for 500m, to the run site near the big sala.

There will be a quiz night on Friday 12th December at the Office Bar, where there should be a full-strength SH3 team pitting their collective minds (2 between 4 at the last count) against all-comers, which rumor has it will include a new team featuring our very own Perky, bent on breaking the Hash-Teachers domination. The quiz master is French Eric and as this is the last quiz of the year there will no doubt be declarations made about the amount that has been raised for charity this year. Come along and help swell the coffers at the blind school (or is it the orphanage? Memory fails me!)

Finally details of the HH3 run on Sunday have arrived and a map and traditional directions appear below. But for the public good, information about the identity of the hares is being withheld. Censorship: you know it makes you happy!

From Wat Keow Kloy go about 7.5k down Poonakan and turn left into Soi Ban Nai Rai. Follow the road for 1.5k and turn left up the dirt road for 300m to the runsite. 

Rainy Sunday in Nam Noi

Nice and dry before yesterday's run. It wouldn't last.

The circle starts amidst some serious rain.

New GM Robocop takes command.

We don't allow this sort of thing on Songkhla Hash.

The hares . . . grrrrr.

Hound dog blues

You may remember that old blues tune "Let Me Be Your Little Dog Till Your Big Dog Comes". Well, the big dog came yesterday and along with its owner, Throbbin' Hood, made quite an afternoon of it. The pair of them were finally plucked off the top of the hill in pretty much pitch darkness by Hash Buddha Bak Toy. Neither TH nor the hound seemed any worse for wear, and it made for an excellent extended circle.

Every picture tells ... a different story

So here's the official version of SH3 1745...err 1746 (swiftly updated to allow for last week's run which took place despite it's official cancellation) which bore only scant similarity to the run which the alleged FRB's (who have become suddenly hillophobic) did.
Which only goes to prove that we are still able to ignore any kind of regulation and do exactly what we want to f***ing well do!
Long may it continue!
GM (err... am I?)

Miscellaneous SH3/HH3 pix

Just cleaning out the hard drive . . . .