Saturday, November 2, 2013

GFH3 Run #1,723; 2 November 2013

Glorious weather, beautiful foliage, and no suspicion that Phoenix Rising had paired up with The Pumpmaster to set the trail combined to induce over 40 hashers to come out to Great Falls today.  (Also about 10,314,612 people to pack onto the Georgetown Pike on their way to Great Falls Park, resulting in a traffic jam extending from the park to the Madeira School, creeping along at about seven mph.)  And, while no formal polling took place, it's not unreasonable to assume everyone enjoyed the event mightily.

Yikes!

Of course, it's entirely reasonable to assume a collective shudder shook the crowd when Chip Off the Old Dick's male parent and Air Horn's male offspring stepped forward to claim credit for engineering the run.  The former is notorious for deciding that he just can't skip this beautiful bit of scenery through here, because people will enjoy it more than enough to make up for the additional 2.7 miles it adds to true trail.  The latter is about 30 and a personal trainer, a profession notorious for believing that people should push themselves just a little bit further.  That's right!  One more!  You can do it!  And how 'bout one more after that!  You can do it!

Well, almost everyone did do it, though Pumpmaster, as sweeper, offered up a nice bit of shortcutting for some of the stragglers.  Gale, seeing confusion in the crowd early in the run (Gale, they are always confused), took off up Beach Mill and finished about 45 minutes ahead of anyone else, and missed several really beautiful bits of scenery.  Those bits of beautiful scenery were enlivened by a thick coating of drying leaves over fair-sized, jagged rocks; bonus yay!  And some of those rocks and leaves were muddy and wet!  And no one returned to the On In via stretcher!

Note challenging footing, skillfully handled.
Note beauty of trail.

I have no idea what the walkers got up to.  I have been away too long and forgotten how to do a Hash blog.  Sorry.  I do know there were a lot of dogs at the event:  Mango, Piper, Espeon, Abby, Kylie, Ralph, some golden-retrieverish pup, maybe more.  The sign on the door to the Horn family hashing suite read, "No dogs," but Air Horn kept inviting them in.  For a cat man, he has a very generous nature.

He's also a generous host, and got in Peruvian chicken for the crowd, with that tasty green sauce, plaintains and some kind of yucca or sweet-potato fries, plus salad and cookies and seven-layer dip and other stuff.  Magnificent, and perfect for the warm-but-starting-to-get-chilly weather and the longish run.

The Mufti called the roll with his usual flair.  Little Ricky Tutu, whom we don't see tutu often (ha ha!), reached number 111 (ooooh) and Moaner Lisa achieved 965.  Somewhat ironically, she advised LRT to "get a life."  Great weather, beautiful trail, good friends, fab food, dogs everywhere and plenty of beer and wine served at appropriate temperatures... how much more of a life does anyone need?

Photos via this link.

GFH3 Run #1,722; 26 October 2013

Severely Last's 300th run with GFH3, in a month full of 298th and 300th runs with various hashes for him; discounts at the Old Brogue.  He celebrated by re-claiming the name "Bad Dog."  I am going to swipe the Mufti's notes to try to fill in some blanks.