Motox 2Bob Puddleduck Cheating Greenfly Chuck Bollox Spex C5 Sue5 Iceman HoneyMonster Cerberus Mick Neil Lynda Foghorn Danish Tom Natasha Einstein SpeedBumps BakewillTart Khazi GBH CircuitBreaker Spot Flash Harimau Gutbucket HeyBabe ShaginaJag Mr. Blobby Mrs. Blobby Utopia Chopstix SkyDiver Centaur Florence Zebedee Bev InCider Potty EasyRider Gusset Carl Kev Shirtlifter Wally Richard Baldrick Dumper Septic Eth Ms. Whiplash Kay Uptake PonyExpress Tanya Whinge TC OldFart Itsyor Tweenie Cap’n Y-Fronts Lonely and Beaver the dog Lesley BGB Bomber Tom Anna LadyBird BlowJob Skids

First of all we must thank Motox for an excellent evening’s entertainment. He’d laid on loadsa sunshine, organised the race numbers, sorted out a table to put them on, brought lots of water, set up a foot and mouth disinfectant tray for the shoes, laid the trail, mowed the field, brushed the dogs, organised a counselling service for the last ones back and paid off the National Debt. A lot of people had turned up, some like Anna had never been with the Hash before. Some like Carl had not been on the Fun Run before. Little did they know what to expect! For those who don’t know the trail is laid with no checks or bars – it’s a straight off-road race, so it should be (and was) very well marked with lots of flour and strips of red and white plastic. Since it was a race people like Lesley and Neil who consider themselves athletes were actually warming up and stretching. Small knots of confused Hashers gathered to view the spectacle and debate what it was they were actually doing. Some, like Lonely, C5 and even myself felt duty bound to attempt these strange hamstring twanging routines but gave up after half a minute, panting like Beaver – and he doesn’t stretch at all!

It was very sad to note that certain Hashers were not running due to various reasons. EasyRider claimed a legitimate soleus injury and she’s quite attractive so we can let her off. InCider (who later castigated me roundly for consistently spelling her Hash name wrongly – I thought the double-entendre was marginally funnier) stated that Kundun the dog had hurt his paw so she couldn’t run! Ms. Whiplash and Eth offered no explanation but one of ‘em’s the GM so mine is not to reason why. Chopstix didn’t fancy getting all sweaty. ShaginaJag was obviously pooped after all his exertions (draw your own inference) although HeyBabe obviously wasn’t, despite her bad knee. Paella did get roped into the food preparation but then she had no intention of running anyway, despite all that yakking about the Reading ½ Marathon last year. Baldrick gave it the rather pathetic ‘arm in a sling’ routine and (Gabrielle) Dumper turned up with a big patch over one eye stating that if he ran he’d be going round in circles. The things some people do to get out of this…

The handicapped starts began; the injured Greenfly calling the off and doing a fine job of of getting each group away. I was due to start 26 minutes after the first runners and had been lumped in with the hospital Hashers. We consisted of Zebedee (recovering calf injury), Chuck (recovering Achilles injury and cold), myself (recovering cartilage op), C5 (rheumatoid athritis and recovering hernia op), Mick (recovering back injury) and Ladybird (various psychological problems and a tendency to show his arse in public). Now from here I won’t have too much to say about anyone else so please forgive me if you don’t get a mention. I was rather too busy trying not to have a heart attack since one of the aforementioned might give me mouth-to-mouth – and hopefully no tongues.

We set off at a reasonable pace, Zeb and I exchanging pleasantries and pretending we weren’t going to get competitive, and caught up with CircuitBreaker after about 300 yards. Surprising really since she had started about 20 minutes before us. Curiously, she was also turning left when the flour arrow was clearly marked as right. Obviously she knew something we didn’t because we caught her up again after about half an hour’s hard running! Hmm. Our group kept together very well for the first mile or so and we only lost the trail a couple of times through the forest. Mainly because of our myopia, though how we missed some huge arrows I’ll never know. We caught up with Foghorn first and then Wally. The trail wound through scrub and bush; sometimes hard, root-rippled earth; sometimes crunchy pebbles. We began to find the short but steep dips and hills that Motox had so thoughtfully utilised. Splashing through a foetid stream past unknown Hashers daintily clinging to a slender log, Zeb and I gasped our way up a loose shale slope past the intrepid Puddleduck (well done for running the race) and dad 2Bob (good idea to ‘have to’ help out the son. Wish I’d brought mine along). Holly bushes and low branches whipped our faces. Fast growing crops in hot fields threatened to trip. The arid earth was cracked and ridged – I had expected at least one person to ‘do a Baldrick’. But luckily no-one did.

Ladybird got the bit between his teeth and shot off ahead, the mad fool. This left Zeb and me being caught up by Bomber at the fishermen’s pond and then immediately overtaken by Centaur who whinnied past on flying fetlocks. Shortly to be followed by Lesley whose calf muscles Zeb no doubt appreciated as she flashed past. Despite being knackered by now we weren’t too dispirited since we started overtaking too. Flash, Whinge, HeyBabe, Dolly and others were left choking in our dust and then I managed to hold up fit ba****d Neil who was gagging to pass. Well he didn’t ask nicely, did he? Then we came across Bev in the middle of a field. Curiously, she was off to one side of the narrow track through the crops, bent over and facing the passing runners. I assume she was either tying a shoelace or it was a fairly volcanic bout of flatulence and she had sportingly turned round in order not to blow anyone over as they passed.

Thanks to our host Lonely we repaired to the pleasant environs of his beautiful house ‘St. John’s March’ where we chomped our way through Nutcracker’s excellent food. Lots of people helped with the barby and beer so a large portion of thanks goes to them for helping to make the aprés run a great success. C5 RA’d and passed to Motox to dole out the prizes :-