GFH3 Run #1,779; 8 November 2014

In the midst of the new construction, golf courses and townhouse developments of Ashburn there is a farm or two still, and there is a bit of unpaved road with a 19th-century farmhouse that Little Ricky Tutu and his bride (about three years, for those of you who may have missed that development) are renovating.  Kindly, they shared it with the hash today, with Bad Dog assisting on trail.  The 27 hashers foregathered admired the work done and the plans for the future, listened respectfully to promises of a friendly trail for all ages and activity levels, then ran off into the mud of the nearest construction site.

Warm-up jig

Warm-up cheer

They found about five miles -- two and a half for the four walkers -- of mixed pavement and grass; pipeline and W&OD.  Along the way, Climax Investigator came up with several ideas for nicknames:  Rubs One Out for Seth, who was fixing chalk marks along the way; Little Pokey Things for Brogue Bait, who was irked by the sticktights clinging to her extremities; Jack Rabbit, Sticky Palm and Go Long for others for other reasons.  Go Long presumably has something to do with the football that was, per Bite Me (eyes rolling), in constant play throughout the run.

Fleet feet with football

The 19 runners made it back in four clumps (fast, faster, super-fast and shortcutters) and settled down to sausage (LRT:  "Regular or spicy?"), burgers and dogs and trimmings, bedewed by Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada amongst others.  As the crisp and sunny afternoon ceded to a chilly and sunset-y evening, hoods were pulled up and coats pulled on and blankets pulled over the coats and hoods, and the Mufti started shouting.  He was moving along as briskly as the weather through that roll call until he got down into the S's, when he suddenly flinched, bellowed a warning, and announced Spurt has achieved 666.  Then he dug into the B list for Pumpmaster, whilst Air Horn sadly pondered what he had done wrong.  To rear a B-lister:  oh, the ignominy.

During a conversation about Radar's photographic perspective and the plaudits it wins from half our membership, Bite Me confessed, "I can't find most of my costumes."  Non-Radar (sorry, guys) pictures here.  Great hash!

NEXT WEEK:  NOON START in Rock Creek Park.

GFH3 Run #1,769; 3 September 2014

Walks on Water's stretch of Arlington contains some decent hills, but he and Mini Schlonga and Eric made the choice to eschew the most challenging of them on this hot and humid night.  Instead, they sent the pack on a non-Death March (remember the last time we were here?  Minivans carjacked to haul hashers out of the depths of the Potomac in the dead of night?) through pleasant parks, along Donaldson Run, and back through the less-undulating streets of Cherrydale and environs.

Nonetheless, while MinS insisted true trail was a (to him) paltry five miles, most of the 16 runners short-cutted in one way or another.  The holdouts?  Chip Off the Old Dick and Matt stuck with true trail, bashing their way through the second woodsy bit in the dark, and marking the checks assiduously.  Probably Bad Dog did, too; if he's made it in by now, you can ask him.

Once you've bonded like this, you've got to run the full trail.

There were 30 of us total, including Melisande without a crutch but not up for running yet, Paula abandoning the charms of Charm City for the evening, and Howard floating free of Space City.  It was, of course, well worth the trip.  The walkers got a proper trail, incorporating stretches of the runners' trail, and everyone got bratwursts and beer and WoW's family-recipe spud salad, which is delicious with or without the bacon.  Plus Tofu Pups for at least one of us, and the delightful Mo declined to be added to the roll but kindly provided us with two super-delicious and homemade cakes, moist and dense and the vanilla one filled with fruit.  Cake!

With the Mufti off doing surveillance on the Outer Banks, and the Associate Mufti performing reconnaissance in Croatia, the Assistant Associate Mufti was entrusted with the official roll, thumbing exasperatedly through the 2,006-name C List to find the couple of Mount Vernon regulars who joined us.  Also getting a tiny bit of something just a little bit sticky on the B List.  Sorry, Mufti.

Lovely view on a bit of false trail -- makes it worth the extra distance, right?

We welcomed Dana from Tampa, formerly of Arlington and soon to be of San Francisco, plus Anne, for their #1 GFH3 runs, and Chris for #2.  See if you recognize them in the photos here.  Given the early dark, you'll find fewer than usual.

See you at Zipperhead/Zipperbody and Phlashback's at 6:30!! next week.  That's right, 6:30pm next week, half an hour earlier so the Phlashheads and Dances with Bulls have a little extra daylight in which to shove you through the woods.  Fun!

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 #1,760; 2 July 2014

Some people love the 'heat index' idea, some people mock it, but the heat index, early this evening, was 103 degrees, on an ambient temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit.  And the forecast included thunderstorm warnings through 8:00pm, and something like thunderstorm-certainties after that.  Yikes!  In typically unpredictable fashion, 27 hashers braved the swamp-like weather to gather in south Reston, where Chip Off the Old Dick had laid what may be his shortest trail ever, and he and Maria laid out their usual feast.

Mobile Water Stop One, on the move (and farther behind the pack than planned).

It is awfully entertaining when the hare says he has no idea how long true trail is, but COtOD clearly put some time in to planning and marking thoroughly.  That said, rain lays waste to the best of plans, so he encouraged everyone to take chalk during one of the most-interrupted hash briefs of all time, and sent the 18 runners on their way.  COtOD also mentioned that he'd expended thought and time on shortening the route he'd initially planned.  He had a couple of new spots (one actually lightly-used from three weeks ago, when thunderstorms scattered the pack in the midst of a lovely bit of park) he wanted to include, and managed to do so in less than four miles of true trail.  Multiple water stops helped ensure that the full pack was getting where it was supposed to go, and also proved that the marks had done their job in helping keep that pack together.  So everyone was back before dark, raving about the excellence of the trail and delighting in pizza, spareribs, several salads, too many kinds of beer to count, and lots and lots and lots of wine.  Plus chips.  And maybe cookies.

With Easy Strider providing lighting, Reston Association assuring plenty of tables and seats, and the ODs ensuring that no one in a quarter-mile radius would go hungry, dinner was a convivial affair.  The Mufti announced that there are plenty of hosting slots still available in July and August, and the Jazz Swinger mentioned that she'd sure love some help with setting trail from her place in Ashburn next week.

Rough Cut loves to find a false trail when the heat index is 103!

The Mufti further announced that, in the Year of the Chefs, the Chef of the Year was Heats it Up, and Blows and Goes had managed to stick around long enough to step forward and collect her award for her.  In additional post-Anniversary Hash business, he asked The Oral Advocate to accept a token of collective esteem (gourmet crackers and a Nationals pen shaped like a bat) for his ceaseless care of the Hash in his role as Associate Mufti.  Then he called roll, and we welcomed Other Sandra back from Mozambique, welcomed occasional newbies Ann and Kim, and celebrated Maria's double-ones, Rough Cut's triple-eights, and Nipples's triple-ones.  Oooooooooooooooooh.  Suck, Squeeze, Bang will never stop celebrating her 299th, and next time we see her she'll have the chance to persuade the Executive Committee to give her a new name -- maybe one she actually likes this time.

Almost home.

And it didn't rain.  Awesome.  All those damp-looking people in the photos are just -- you know -- glowing.  As one does in Virginia in the summer.

GFH3 Run #1,754; 28 May 2014

Radar's plea for assistance did not go unheeded, and he spent the afternoon with his buddy Valiant, throwing enough flour on the streets, trees and mailboxes of Great Falls to survive the threatened thunderstorms that didn't actually manifest.  So the 42 hashers who made their way to the garage this evening were doubly delighted:  the trail was enthusiastically well marked, and the weather was warm and reasonably sunny, if a touch humid.

Runners

The 26 runners got an under-five mile true trail, and mostly managed to complete it by dark.  The 5-K contingent made appropriate shortcuts.  Walkers, just 11 of them, got a pleasant, and well-marked, loop along Thimbleberry.  The well-bandaged Beef Strokemoff and Kimball did a little checking up on the local real-estate market, while Tastycakes rested up back at the On In.  She was fresh from nine miles in the Blue Ridge, helping Dad and Brother prepare for their attempt on Denali in a week and a half.

Miles, kilometers - there are no rules.

Arriving back at the garage, the hash found chips and guacamole as well as wine, beer and water.  Of course, just behind that there's...  THE POOL!  Radar's solar array had brought the water to a pleasant 84 degrees, which was enough to tempt a handful of swimmers, a few feet-sticker-inners, and one cannonball that only splashed a few electronic devices and a couple handfuls of chips.  Somewhere in the middle of all this, Radar started bringing out his barbequed chicken, crispy on the outside and juicy in the middle like it's supposed to be.

This is eerily similar to a picture from about one year ago...

The Mufti being absent without leave, the Associate Mufti shouted the roll, barely heard over the roar of the three mini waterfalls in the pool.  There were four newcomers; welcome Sean, Donna, Will and Will's father-in-law who is not named Justin.  Walks on Water made a special appearance, as did Heats it UP and Jeffy Lube, whom we don't usually see on Wednesdays.  Mini Schlonga was back after too long an absence (work, work, work, plus dehydration severe enough to warrant a couple visits to the E.R.).  They're all in the pictures.