Now they've gone too far

And you think I'm just being paranoid? Look what greeted me when I opened my email this morning:

Precision run-siting

No excuses for not finding the runsite this week, which is by the way a first-timer, albeit in an area we know quite well. Full details are:

Songkhla Hash House Harriers run #1754, Saturday 31st January 2015, 4:00 p.m.
Hares: Yardstick and Kii Leum
Misdirections: From the Kao Seng intersection take the old Yala road for 16k and turn right before Wat Kun Tong. Go 3.5k to the big tree then continue West (towards Tha Kham) for 850 metres, turn left and follow the bendy road for 670 metres to the runsite on the left in the rubber. (If coming from Tha Kham, go 4.9k towards Ban Sai Khao and turn right, then follow the bendy road for 670 metres to the runsite.)

Sunday's HH3 run is from the beer stop from last week's run: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 10k and turn left at the Nam Noi traffic lights. Look for signs on the right in about 3k then follow the road through the village and up the hill to the run site at the top. The hares are again Sex Printer and Toy Boy.

Finally, there will be a full moon run next week, currently slated for Tuesday 3rd February with the likely runsite being: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4k and turn left. Go 6k and turn right then follow signs for 300m to the runsite. The hare will be Egghead. More details next week.

A whole lot of wedding party pix

 Photos by Tim Pelling unless otherwise noted. Thanks Tim!

Photo by Beavershot

Photo by Beavershot

Photo by Beavershot

HH3 yesterday

Despite three goes at getting the directions right, (they were correct the first time round!) everyone managed to find the runsite yesterday - well almost everyone, there were a small number of notable absentees who may still have been nursing delicate heads from the previous evening. But Yardo and Sticky were there wearing matching scars, Yardo's discretely covered by a band-aid, Sticky's out there and bloody with his hair stuck in it!
The run started out with a loop around part of the trail followed by the HH3 run 3 weeks ago, then climbed and climbed and climbed up to about 230 meters before a gentle jog down to the beer stop After that the hares had found a previously untrodden trail along the hill southwards, coming down onto the main trail not far North of the runsite. Everyone was home in about 55 minutes and the run was recorded at about 5k for those who avoided the F's and the X.

HH3 today

Revised directions for today's HH3 run are:
From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 8k, then right (at Wat Keow Kloy into Th. Poonakan) for 5k. Turn right just before Wat Thungnai and look for signs to the runsite. The hares are Sex Printer and Toy Boy.

The aftermath

Bride, bridesmaids, and some dude with a camera. Photo by Tim Pelling.

Yes, cracked heads, aching heads, memory-impaired heads . . . if you were there yesterday and woke up today with your head in anything like normal condition, count yourself lucky. In fact the drinking wasn't perhaps as heavy as it might have been, with a considerable number of us still recovering from Friday night's excesses -- Coffee in Love till almost 4 am. -- following the triumphant, nail-biting victory of your hash team on Quiz Night. But we still managed to go through about 12 cases of Leo, never mind the wine and hard booze. And Sex Sprinter and the karaoke hardcore were still singing when the host and his only slightly used bride sneaked off around midnight.

Thanks to Egghead for setting a superb pre-party run, with a notably sporty descent off the hill behind Thung Jaeng; to my old Bangkok buddy Tim for coming down to shoot the event; to Sexy Girl for organizing the bride's and bridesmaids' wardrobe; and to all of you for joining us in this truly (I hope) once-in-a-lifetime experience. Now the only question remaining: whose wedding party are we going to next January? The punters now seem to favor Freehand but Quack Whacker still thinks otherwise.

Fair warning: lots more photos coming soon!

1753

...was a mere 5k with another 700 meters worth of F's and X's, a maximum height of 212m and a total ascent of 287m. The short run should only have been 2.9k but some problems breaking the final check caused a diversion through the village and down to the road. Both runs took the first runners about an hour with the last of the long runners, Gan Yao and Katrina coming in from the wrong direction almost an hour later. Highlights of the party which followed will no doubt be posted later, but there are definitely going to be some sore heads this morning - particularly Stick Insect and Yardstick who both managed to crack theirs on the roof of the sala of death.

The social event of the season

The blushing bride

Just a reminder: Handjob and I cordially invite one and all to tomorrow's wedding party at Thung Jaeng. Run or walk or just drink beer from 4 pm., then dinner and lots more beer from 6 pm. The groom has promised that he'll try not to pass out in the back of anyone's pickup truck this time. But guests are welcome to if necessary. See you there -- on-on!

The beaver gets a mate!

Life is full of surprises. A year ago we were in Ubon celebrating Softy and Temp's wedding, trying to figure out who might be the next in line. Few thought it would be Beaver and Handjob, but ... life is full of surprises.
So Saturday's SH3 run will be a celebration of Beavershot and Handjob's marriage and following the run there will be dinner and a party at Tung Jaeng to which everybody is invited. Details are:

Songkhla Hash House Harriers run #1753, Saturday January 24th, 2015, 4:00 p.m.
Hares: Egghead and Harram
Misdirections: From The Kao Seng intersection take the old Yala road for 11k and turn right at the Ang Thong intersection into the new Yala road for 1.4k to the Tung Jaeng restaurant on the left. If you are coming from the Ko Yo intersection continue eastwards along the new Yala road towards the Ang Thong intersection and take the final U turn (just before Ang Thong) and go back westwards for about 1.3k.

Sunday's (January 25th) HH3 run will be from somewhere in the vicinity of the Or Bor Tor at Pru Toh: take a left at the Nam Noi traffic lights on the old Hatyai road and go for 3.5k then turn right and look for signs, paper or the hand of God to guide you to the runsite. The hares are believed to be Sex Printer and Buk Toy.

Finally the first quiz of 2015 will take place at the Office Bar on Friday 23rd January at 8:00 p.m. and the hash team will be attempting to avoid a second successive defeat, having had victory snatched from them in the final quiz of 2014 by the evil teachers supplemented by that weasel, Shortscrew. The quiz master is Coco. Expect no quarter to be given.

HH3: Nice trail if you can find it!

...which Kii Leum did; others didn't, largely because the first check was located only just out of range of the in trail. There were more problems later causing most people to miss out some of the run. Those who didn't said they wished they had. There's no pleasing some people!

More from run 1752

The cream of SH3 hashing enjoy a well earned beer

Just in case the image below makes it seem as if it was flat! 

Here's yesterdays much lauded Short Screw run. The hare called it at 6k but Kii Leum only measured 5.3k. The peak, which we just about made, is 246m and with the three beer stops the total time was about 1hr 20, with an hour of that being on the move. Great to see so many people on the trail, particularly as the old geezers were for a change in a minority. It's probably no coincidence that two of the best runs in recent weeks have both been on this hill which after being virtually unusable after the storm in 2010 has been transformed and is now prime running territory.

Chot he where?

No, Chotiwat!
Directions for tomorrows' HH3 run for those who like straightforward, no nonsense routes:
From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for about a million kilometers; past Tesco, past Macro, until you hit the big junction then turn left onto route 41 southbound and go about 2k until you see a U turn sign just past the Chotiwat factory on the left (just before the PTT station), and turn back northwards. The run site is then on the left after about 300 meters.
For the adventurous few, the scenic route is to take the 4.7k turn left off the old Hatyai road and to follow the road for 13.5k past Wat Keow Kloy and Wat Nern Pijit, until you hit Route 41, then turn right (Northwards) for about 11k when the runsite will be on the left.
P.S. Great run today, Mango!

In the heat of the afternoon

Saturday's SH3 run is being set by Songhkla's answer to Sydney Poitier. Full details are:
Songkhla Hash House Harriers' run #1752, Saturday January 17th, 2015, 4:00 p.m.
Hare: Short Screw
Misdirections (from Songkhla): From the Ko Yo intersection take the new Hatyai road for 8.5k (past the True Moves tower) and turn left for 1.5k then left and follow the bendy track for 1.8k to the runsite. Turn and park so as not to block the track!
From Hatyai, take the old road to the Nam Noi traffic lights and turn left for 4.1k then right for 1.8k etc. Alternatively take the new road and U turn after the True Moves tower then come back past it and turn left etc.
HH3's run on Sunday is another Sex Star effort, but then after last week's excellent run no one is going to complain too much about that (are they?). No information as to where he's going to be setting it which will be announced on Saturday and will be posted here when known.

Gooood run!

There's a history of monsters around Wat Cham Uthit and Saturday's 8k plus was getting on that way particularly as it included the full climb up Chompo Soi 1, reaching the top at 290m from a starting point of under 30m. All told, 10 hounds made the trip. In view of the dearth of paper, Kii Leum guided the front group of 7 round the long trail, while Only a Yolk playing the role of Gan Yao in his waywardness's absence, attempted a premature ascent, only to be collected half way up the hill by the walking (wounded) Stick Insect. Later they were joined by Short Screw who had attempted a short cut up the hill only to be forced back down to the main road. Meanwhile the 4.2k short run (in red), apparently on even sparser paper, lost Diet Diaw and Ork Dork who, having reached the base of the hill on the long run, made a valiant but eventually doomed attempt to climb it, only to be forced back by lack of fried chicken, and had to be rescued by R2D2 in Yardo's truck. Some minor gripes about the lack of paper and the surfeit of concrete but no one listens to Stick Insect do they? (Do they?)

Sunday's HH3 run in contrast was met with a good deal of surprised admiration, as Sex Star's record from the  quarry near Gamling is, not to put to fine a point on it, not good. But once we'd got over the first hill, it became apparent that we were not in for the usual up-down-up-down etc. run and although there was no shortage of hills they were well spaced out by some great running country and even a well placed beer stop. The total trip was about 7.5k with the post-beer stop 3k or so causing a number of runners to depart from the straight and narrow, notably Robocop, who may not even have made the BS before cutting back over the hills, Yardstick who followed some fit young things off the trail then had to fight his way back over Hatyai's answer to Hadrian's Wall to rejoin it, and Kii Leum who somehow managed to cut across the out trail, pick up the short run paper and come in from the wrong direction. Good news for Stick Insect though, his shirt has arrived, even if he wasn't there to collect it!

The end of the wall!

Some kind of coded historico-political statement from hare's this week, whose directions to the runsite read:

Songkhla Hash House Hariers' run # 1751, Saturday 10th January 2015, 4:00 p.m.
Hares: R2D2 and Kii Leum
Misdirections: From the Khao Seng intersection take the old Yala road for 5.5k and turn    RIGHT.
Go 1.6k to THE END OF THE WALL
                                  and turn LEFT for 100m to the run site.

Sunday's HH3 run, on the other hand, is dedicated to bringing happiness to everybody, particularly to Sexy Girl whose birthday it is. The hare is Sex Star and the location is adjacent to the Gamling reservoir (From Songkhla, take the 4.7k turn left off the old Hatyai road and go 8k. Turn right (into Poonakan at Wat Keow Kloy) for about 8.5k and look for a sign on the left somewhere after the abattoir, then turn left and hope for the best.)

Finally, is it too soon to remind ourselves that Beavershot, the world's longest surviving bachelor has finally succumbed to the tender trap and although he will be absent this weekend doing the cultural wedding in Nakhon Nowhere, he will return to wow us all with his brand new bride, (well only part-used anyway) Handjob, and that they will be throwing a party at Tung Jaeng in two weeks time (24th January) after the run which will also be from TJ. If you've got an invitation don't forget to RSVP so that they have some idea of how many people to cater for, and if you haven't, come along anyway - everybody is welcome.

Incomparable

Saturday's majestic SH3 run above: 6.6k or 4k for the short run, which took R2D2 about  50 minutes. The long run took Short Screw 1 hour and 6 minutes but stragglers took a while longer for both runs. The long run got up to 282 meters and there was a measured total ascent of 363 meters; but that included the two little diversions by the hare (in blue) which took him about an hour and half to complete, in the process  proving that you can't get down the hill there!

HH3 on the other hand, managed barely 4k on Sunday, even after putting back the first third of the run which Beavershot and Kii Leum couldn't be bothered to do. The second of the two hills was marginally the biggest at about 150 meters and the total ascent couldn't have been much more even though it seemed like we spent a lot of the 55 minutes the run took, toiling up hills then immediately plunging down them on barely passable trails. The run in was nice though!

Angkor marathon update

Stick Insect has become the first to sign up for our Angkor Half Marathon trip (event details here). He's flying there on the Air Asia itinerary I suggested: leave Hadyai at 10:50 and arrive at Siem Reap 15:45 on Friday, August 7. He's going to stay an extra day, coming back on Tuesday the 11th instead of Monday. Return flight times are 12:15-17:00.

So far we have 6 (or is it 7, with Kitty?) definites: Sticky, Yardo, the Eggs, and HJ and me. Anyone else interested?

Brand new year, brand new run (same old you!)

A happy new year to all our readers - all 3 of them!

This week's hare is making all the usual noises about new runsites and virgin trails but we all know that it will just be more of the same, just in a slightly different order, and that half the pack won't follow the paper anyway! But there will be a run which bears the auspicious number of:

Songkhla Hash House Harriers' run #1750, Saturday January 3rd, 2015, 4:00 p.m.

Hares: Egg people

Misdirections: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 6k. Turn left (at the Tha Kham crossroads) and go 1.5k then turn right for 400m then left (at Sala Hin Kliang) for 400m then right for 100m to the run site. Park considerately - the ground is very wet so it's probably best not to park in the rubber - do a U turn and park on the edge.

HH3 on Sunday will be set by silly pants, alias Sex Star, but details of the location have yet to be revealed (or we were all too tired last week to take it in when we were told!)