GFH3 Run #1,784; 6 December 2014

Rough Cut Rides to the Rescue!  Hash Hero Does it Again!  Not only did he provide a warm, dry place for 18 hashers to gather, with Easy Strider for the assist he laid a well-marked four-plus mile trail around Leesburg, with enough mud and rock to keep it amusing.  Intermittent downpours made setting amusing for our hosts, until E.S. shook both fists at the firmament and shouted, "Is this the best you've got?!"  Allegedly, they were subject to nothing worse than drizzles after that.  More news from the set:  they had to stop at a grocery store and pick up additional flour.  Imagine those two showing up in your baking goods aisle, soaking wet and squeaking clay across the floor.

Happy birthday to Dr. Pecker, PhD!

Seven runners essayed the course, six forwards and one backward (on purpose), and they mostly seem to have checked almost every false trail, so that Jeffy Lube claimed almost seven miles on his GPS.  Chip Off the Old Dick, exploring the mud with his usual commitment, wound up far behind the others, re-checking the falses and returning late, covered with glitter.  He claims he doesn't know where that came from, either.  One colleague guessed mica in the rocks; another guessed strip clubs just across the state line.

Mud plus rocks!

Over on the walkers' side, they mostly toured Leesburg, with the Mufti and Ole Fud covering over three miles, including several circuits of the train store, and barely beating the runners back.  No one got too terribly wet, though a steady drizzle ensured enthusiasm for dry socks back at the On In.  There was also considerable enthusiasm for the pizza, the Oklahoma/Oklahoma game and the Heineken.

The Mufti was of course enthusiastic over his roll call, congratulating our host on his heroics as well as his 898th run, and the former Drill Me, Fill Me, previously known as Open Wide and Swallow, on his 300th run with its concomitant new name, which is either Dr. Jaws or Jawbreaker, depending on who was shouting the loudest.  Mufti also asked, again and again, "Is anyone desperate to host next week?"  Receiving a reverberant silence in response, he invited everyone to his and BC3's place for brunch.  That's a NOON START on Saturday.

Blow in the Hole helped with the photos; thanks!

GFH3 Run #1,764; 30 July 2014

The last A-to-B I can remember was run number 1,500, in November 2009, when the hounds had to traverse all of the five or six miles between I'm Not Dead Yet's and Queen Cobra's.  For tonight's run, Heater Beater and Rough Cut, after dragging 31 of us out to Leesburg on a weeknight, threatened a reeeeally long A-to-B trail, claimed they were hoping to win the Death March Award, and promised vehicular transport to get everyone back from the On In at B to their cars at A.  Funny thing was, it actually was a decent-length trail:  several GPSes hit five-and-a-half.

Leesburg on a gorgeous night.

But ha ha!  The B was actually only three blocks from the A!  So the 17 runners got a BIG circle around to the east and north of Leesburg proper, and through a cemetery somewhere along the way, and then plunged back into the quaintest little downtown in northern Virginia to jog east along Loudon Street and so to HB and Puss in Boot's new little cottage.  It's a fixer-upper; they plan to rehabilitate it and then rent it out to some lucky single, or couple, or very small family.

A drinking club with problems walking past a bar.

The walkers chose a variety of routes and distances, and found such distractions as a closed model-train store against whose windows a few hashers rubbed their noses, and a bar that temporarily distracted two of the entourage from their vigorous exercise.  Everyone made it to the On In eventually - the runners' pack actually keeping pretty well together - to enjoy a gloriously warm evening on the lawn, watching the sunset dim a pale cerulean sky to mauve, and gradually to black, lit by an improbably slender sliver of moon.  And scarfing down Peruvian chicken while they did so, washed back with Red Hook and Tecate and cabernet sauvignon according to preference.

Perfect party house

The excitement of getting rid of a pair of lost-and-found shoes and two shirts before the run began was not enough for the Mufti, so he welcomed Rrocks Starr back from South America (some geographically-challenged cynic demanded to know whether he'd been exposed to ebola), and made Chip Off the Old Dick unseat himself from his comfortable wall to stand in the middle of the crowd and accept great cheers for achieving 700 runs, and led a round of hip-hip-on-ons when hash heroine Blow in the Hole volunteered to host next week.  Cheers, of course, to the gracious hosts, their attempts at trickery easily forgiven.  When the weather's this great, everything's forgiven.  Photos here if you want them; thanks to Beef Strokemoff for taking a turn with the camera.

GFH3 Run #1,728; 7 December 2013

Djamiss me?  I missed you, up until the moment I stepped out of the car in Leesburg this afternoon and thought, '[Expletive delete] it, it is [expletive deleting] cold.'  As the Mufti more eloquently phrased it, "This is the coldest forty degrees can get."  Something about the humidity, the light breeze and the overcast skies combined to make the day feel unseasonably chilly.

But that's not the important part!  What really matters is that 29 hashers took advantage of light traffic to tootle out to the historic village for another Rough Cut party.  RC set trail by himself, having forgotten to get back to any of the several volunteers for co-hare.  Arguably a pity, as somewhere around the fourth mile the pack got terminally confused and short cut their way back to the On In, except for Mini Schlonga, Paddle My Candee Ass and the soon-to-be-renamed (could never be soon enough for him) Cockpit Ejeculator.

Valiant took a few walkers, and one stroller (heh heh) to check out big trees, whilst Moaner and others chose to meander the quaint downtown streets, festively be-decked for the season.  No one stayed out too long, though -- you could sense the pizza from a mile away.  Rough Cut also provided his standard buffet of chips and trail mix, plus holiday-type cookies for dessert, augmenting Lezley's birthday cake.

Mufti's cheery roll call failed to count Mango, Piper and Nathan, but caught the Naughty Nurse and Gene Pool Zombie, demoted months ago to the B list.  Suck Squeeze Bang, desperate to reach 300 and a new name, showed up in a wheelchair; the Executive Committee celebrated Cockpit E's 199th with a meeting; and we finally got to meet Jen Rough Cut, who stopped coming years ago due to the 'wild' nature of our group.  That would be many years ago.  Many, many years ago.

Being otherwise occupied at the time, I failed to get a good photo of Jeffy Lube hitting me, but there are lots of other pictures here.

GFH3 Run #1,690; 30 March 2013

Another warm, sunny spring day, perfect for bicycling the W&OD trail out to Leesburg.  So why was it only Byte Me who chose that transportation method?  She got to Rough Cut's first, and perched on the beer cooler awaiting the arrivals, by car and a couple motorcycles, of about 25 hashers.  Rough Cut and Easy Strider actually were the third or fourth group to join the party, and the only ones to do so lightly dusted with flour.  The Chugger was the only one to do so heavily bandaged about the left thumb, with some kind of hand-and-wrist guard protecting his still-tender nerves and digits.  That took some of the surprise out of the get-well-soon card the Mufti was passing around, but as he pointed out, also saved the hash cash the cost of a stamp.  Plus, we get the pleasure of Chugger's company, so yay.

A whole lot of lessons to us all.

After about the briefest brief in history, which was mostly a couple of jokes about old vs. new flour (Hillbilly Hash had apparently run by recently), a single runner headed into Leesburg, while the other dozen or so stood about in the sun looking at each other.  Someone said, "get running," and the runners started saying things like, "Are we going?"  "What, now?" and "Was that it?", and gradually they all headed into the street.  Then it was the walkers' turn to confab, wondering if they should take the trail or head into town, and eventually they split up; some heading one way and some heading another.  To the best of my knowledge, no one headed straight for the bar at Tuscarora Mill.

Most of the walkers were back within an hour.  The runners spent more like 90 minutes, finishing up with a brief jog along the W&OD, staying well to the right to avoid the many cyclists enjoying the weather, and a short scramble down to the creek and a quick hop across it.  Per Air Horn, "It was a good trail - a bit long, maybe - but that's because we kept screwing up."

The thing is, if you actually run, you don't get to enjoy the weather for as long.

And it was a  good supper, courtesy of Papa John's, with supplemental snacks scattered around the office.  Many of them offered an Easter-y theme, with pastel-wrapped candies in abundance, and the usual beverages.  Mufti forced everyone indoors for the roll, which included the 1,313th run for Air Horn (double 13s) and 44th for Greg.  Ooooooh.  Plus we had three newcomers, though two of them had the sense to sneak away before roll call.  Shortly after that, Rough Cut remembered the cupcakes, each one decorated with a plastic ring (for your finger); some bunnies, some duckies and some lambikins.  What fun!

And now INDY has just shouted from another room that To Bea or Not to Bea phoned from Arizona to wish the GFH3, individually and severally, a happy Easter.  Seconded.  For photos, click here.