Hard core

With a number of people away and pledges of support from others failing to materialize, yesterday's SH3 pack consisted of the hard core who all set off on one or other of the runs and all successfully made it  to the serve-yourself beer stop and thence on home. The weather was kind, so although some careful negotiation was required to avoid getting wet feet early on, the run stuck pretty much to well-trodden trails and was dry underfoot if you stuck to the paper.

The hare swept the long run and was successful in preventing egregious short cutting, managing to be optimally positioned at F7 to stop Sex Sprinter from cutting off back via the road, sending him up the hill with the rest of the pack, but he later made an attempt to come down the hill early, only to have to back track in order not to miss the beer stop.

The long run was 8.3k with, and 7k without the Fs and Xs while the short run was 4.7k with the 2 Fs it included. The long run managed to get above 100m for a short section of the hill and with a total ascent of only 135m was anything but hard core, while the short run stayed pretty much on the flat only briefly dropping below 40m and hitting a maximum of 70m just after rejoining the long run. Palm Job forgot his offer to sponsor the beer stop but then made up for it by buying a case of beer from the beer truck and despite the low attendance the beer truck looked conspicuously short of beer when the last runners departed from the run site at about 8 p.m. Only a Yolk provided the Kao soy which was more or less polished off as well, with lots of people going back for seconds.

Pretty much everybody was iced for something, including the goody-goodies who did nothing punishable, who shall remain nameless in their shame. Paul McKinerny returned after a couple of years and didn't require rescuing this time round, but avoided the ice by not being named yet. The GM graciously owned up to not sticking to paper, thereby ending up with wet feet, and tempting Superpig to the same fate. Buk Toy, Mr. Bean and Squealer were punished for mysteriously arriving at the sixth F from completely the wrong direction suggesting that they must have been guilty of long-cutting. Sex Sprinter avoided being iced for short cutting but was done for not calling and not relaying paper at an F as well as some premature calling before the first X had been allowed to do it's job.

Hares, Egghead, and Rot Rakaa who couldn't make the run itself, were thanked for a couple of adequate runs, while Harram and Two Thousand Baht a Kilo, neither of whom were allowed by their master to be present, were also recognized in absentia. So it's On! On! to the final SH3 run of the year next week which should include the return of Short Screw and it is to be hoped a few of the others who were unable to make it yesterday so that we can end 2018 on a high note. Who's the hare? No need to ask....