GFH3 Run #1,777; 25 October 2014

Another gorgeous day in Sterling, following on a dry summer and fall.  Quick refresher:

This is what the woods around Spurt's house looked like in December 2012

Today, he had mapped a lovely 4.12-mile course, but decided it would be better if he could make the true trail less than four miles -- so he cut through the woods for a bit rather than send people on the paved path.  Fortunately for the hash, today the footing was more like this:

Lovely!  Of course, the eccentrics could still choose damp tootsies if they preferred.

Note Matt in background, headed for the bridge that goes above the water.

Consensus was that the trail was either "sucky" or excellent, both of which adjectives were intended to convey appreciation of an interesting, amusing and beautiful trail.  Further, it was of an appropriate length for those recovering from shoulder surgery, those more comfortable on two wheels, and for any Lyme-disease victims who felt like celebrating a warm and sunny day by being FRB.

The celebrating continued at the On In, with plenty of veggie-pasta casserole and beefy lasagna, with garlic bread and salad and cookies and plentiful libations.  (John:  "Fletcher [golden retriever] loves garlic bread."  Blazing Straddle:  "Who doesn't?")  So 13 tired runners and nine less-tired walkers managed to choke down some nourishment on the back deck.  If it looked like more than 22 hashers to you, that's because there were 31 people there -- lots of host/hare-types plus plentiful sweat-averse socializers.

The Mufti got his usual respectful silence for the roll call, more than can be said for Spurt's brief at the beginning of the meeting.  (Heh heh; actually, everyone was quiet for the brief -- except Susan...)  Spurt, Susan and Blow in the Hole got their well deserved cheers, Kim got an enthusiastic welcome to her first hash, with best wishes for 99 more, Greg made it to the double-8s, and Riley made double-1s.  And does anyone else believe that both Blows and Goes and Pulls Out Early did not stick around for the roll?

Mango stayed for the roll, and did not want to leave.

As the sun began snuggling into the treeline, Susan offered foil and plates to anyone who would take home some lasagna, and insisted everyone take home a banana or two.  If only it were possible to capture her tone -- part generous kindness, part coercion -- in the pictures.

GFH3 Run #1,755; 4 June 2014

The listing said that Cracked Pot would be co-hosting, so of course the hash turned out in its legions to welcome her home from the Great North.  (Mitchell on gardening in Vancouver:  "We don't have mosquitoes.  There's no poison ivy.  We get very few squirrels.")  Her former neighbor, Phoenix Rising, with help from Chip Off the Old Dick, laid out a very pretty runners' trail with several permissions from the neighbors and a turkey/eagle split with all-new territory for the eagles.  Sadly, none of the 28 runners actually completed it... although there were some noble efforts.

Welcome home!

So what happened?  Seriously, two weeks ago, we had a 4.25 mile true trail, and only the three hashers who left twenty minutes early finished, and that in the dark.  Last week, we had about a four mile true trail, and everyone completed it just fine, albeit in well-faded light.  This week, PhR heard the hash thrashing about in the woods on the far side of Difficult Run as he waited on the near side with a water stop, and said, "&$!#, they're going to be another ten or fifteen minutes at least."  Since it was already nearing 8:00pm, he called an audible and dashed up the Pike to the turkey/eagle split, requesting that everyone please play turkey tonight.  Lemme tell ya, it's a weird thing to hear PhR asking people to turkey.  Bad Dog resisted the plea, COtOD elected to sweep after him, a few people hopped into the Rising van, and everyone else turkeyed.

About where the swear words started.

Needing a place to turn the car, PhR was excited to see that Towlston has re-opened -- the bridge repaired.  So he could head straight home along Old Dominion, except there he saw the pack again, not as far along as he would have liked and not as clearly visible, given it was truly dark by then.  Marking the back-check seemed insufficient, and he opted to collect a caravan of cars and auto-hash everyone back.  Sadly, the caravan had not made it to the collection point before the lowering sky did its whole pouring-buckets thing, and by the time the runners made it back, they were each and every one soaked to the bone.

There's 1.5 miles still to go, and all of it woods.

Luckily, there was hot-n-tasty Chinese food waiting for them, and plenty of it, as ten walkers and some miscellaneous extras restrained themselves nicely.  (Plus the Risings went heavy on their order, since a bunch of neighbors came over to see the Pots, too.)  The fridge was stocked with beer (Vienna Lager amongst others, out of Lexington, Virginia) and there were several Black Boxes for the wine contingent.  PhR made a special effort to find, and force into his van, the eagles -- who included the early starters Paddle My Candee Ass, Big Balls on Deck and Norm.  We lost Sean to the woods and the storm, but a search party eventually located him, and brought him back in time for the end bits of the roll call.

Runners return

And get well fed for their efforts

Mufti performed his duties with his usual élan, offering C.P. ten bonus runs if she knew her count; she was off by about 40.  Oh, well.  Cums on  a High Note, who more than ever ought to be known as Long Time Cumming, didn't know hers, either.  The three newbies knew theirs:  Alex, his dad and Chris are all at #1, and we look forward to their second runs, very soon.  As everyone agreed the trail tonight was great, and beautiful, and well worth running, maybe we'll see it again someday -- on a Saturday, for instance, in early autumn.  Easy Strider requested I take a photo of dried blood, and proposed the thigh you'll see in the photos here.  If you can guess whose thigh it is, there's something wrong with you.

MUFTI CONFIRMS THE 32nd ANNIVERSARY HASH WILL TAKE PLACE AT PICKLED PINK HEAT AND PACKING PETER'S ON SUNDAY 29 JUNE.  MARK YOUR CALENDAR!!

GFH3 Run #1,750; 3 May 2014

Maybe you thought the big news from today’s hash would be that the less-than-four-mile true trail took almost two hours for the pack to complete, and the words “death march” floated lightly about the On In.  But no.  The big news from today’s hash was the calamity of Rrocks Starr, so recently returned to us, confusing a sizeable puddle lurking under an overpass midway through the run with a Slip ‘n’ Slide, and somehow ending up with his skull on the jagged pavement intended for his feet.  Most unfortunately, he landed with some force and cut his head, and head wounds will bleed.  Plus there was a bit of mental confusion, which is just not the norm for one of our brightest lights.  So while Dances with Bulls, Paint in the Ass, Oral Advocate and Air Horn rendered first aid and gave the shirts off their backs to staunch the blood, Bionic Babe flagged down a passing car and put in an order for an ambulance.

Before

After

As of Sunday morning, R.S. was well-bandaged, mostly coherent, and being urged by the physicians to rest, eat a lot, and abstain from physical activity, TV, books and alcohol.  He anticipates only the smallest of zippers will afflict his head, as the gash was a surprisingly small one for all that blood.  It’s the concussion you have to worry about, but given he rebounded well from the two previous (both skiing-induced), we may as well remain optimistic. 

Back on trail...  Spurt’s course, as set by himself with assistance from Blow in the Hole and Chip Off the Old Dick, inspired terms like, “all back-checks,” “beautifully convoluted” and “#^&%!!.”  The pack spent about five minutes figuring out how to start the thing, as a for instance.  One back-check seven in the second half proved especially convoluted, as the turning was actually supposed to take place at the sixth mark, oops, and the hounds needed several do-overs to determine that sad fact.  Apparently there were a few other points of confusion as well, so as noted – four miles (Phoenix Rising got 6.4 on his GPS) in about 1.75 hours for the six runners who actually went the full distance.  The other half either went to the hospital or cut the run short due to trauma, and joined the 11 walkers back on Spurt’s deck to check watches and say things like, “Well, they ought to have been back by now.”  Somehow A.H., last seen bandaging R.S. with a t-shirt, managed to finish as FRB.

Carefully navigating a puddle.

Once they actually got back, the full contingent sprang into action, whipping open pizza boxes (the Black Box, Red Hook and co. were open already) and chowing down.  There was also salad and cookies and a luxury offering of Dr. Peppers.  Susan even found several takers for her darling little bananas.  The sun poured down from the bluest sky, neither A.H. nor O.A. mourned the shirts they’d turned into bandages as it was too warm for two shirts anyway, and every now and again a very few drops of rain puttered down from an indigo cloud.  BitH speculated as to why she always finds Spurt and Susan's hashes especially peaceful.

Carelessly enjoying a sunny afternoon.

After a hospital report from B.B., who’d handed the patient off to his wife, and BitH, who’d handed the patient’s wallet off to his wife, Mufti offered up a roll that included double sixes for Gale and 1,499 and 14/34 for himself and 499 and 17/21 for his wife.  Wednesday at the Pavilion will see those run counts finally round themselves up to whole numbers.  Sam, introduced to hashing by Paul, achieved #1 (huzzah!  To the CUP!) and expressed appropriately youthful enthusiasm for the sport.  (You see, he is what Vinny Gambini would call a yewt.)  Debate as to whether R.S. had earned a run resolved in his favor.  Our Fearless Leader reminded us that John Gurr, friend and founder, died one year ago (29 April 2013) and informed us that Dr. Pecker, PhD, has had some worrying reports of a possibly-dodgy ticker, so remember him in your prayers or incantations.

More photos here.

GFH3 Run #1,738; 8 February 2014

Hash heroes Phoenix Rising and Chip Off the Old Dick came through once again, providing an excellent trail and gracious On In for a grateful hash today.  The weather was even semi-decent for February, with some weak sunshine poking through the clouds, and none of that icy air or bitter wind that turns a chilly day freezing cold.  Chilly enough, though, that despite PR’s beautifully landscaped Great Falls acres, today’s 40 hashers seemed glad of a well-heated garage.

Susan is looking for homes for her brother's masks,
especially that weird one on the lower left.

We were graced with at least two Legends of the GFH3 we don’t see often enough, with both The First Lady and Dr. Pecker, PhD, present to help show the whippersnappers how it’s done.  This may just be a vicious rumor with no basis in truth, but did they both walk?  If so, what a runner’s trail they missed!  The pack clumped and scattered and re-formed constantly, with a different FRB every few moments, including folks, like Lori, Big Balls on Deck, Sally and Cocked and Loaded, who don’t always get to the check marks first.  And then, Jeffy Lube got to the final backcheck (5) first!  Mercy tempering justice is what that is.  Another one of the great moments on trail:  maybe eight to ten front runners scrambling across a creek and muddling around while the mid-pack people stealthily found, and ran, the true trail without any foot-wetting.  Phoenix Rising just loves stuff like that.  Incidentally, as if disavowing a certain reputation, the hares kept the hounds to a mere five miles or so.

Far side of stream:  false trail.  So why are they headed that way?

Is this, or is this not, a serious running club?

Paddle My Candee Ass was SRB (second-running etc.); was JL first?  Who cares!  There’s food inside!  In a dramatic break with tradition, Susan made chili and minestrone for the after-party, which was so good that everyone forgot any kung pao or sesame green bean cravings they might have brought with them.  Kind neighbor Claudia (she let PR and COtOD set trail through her property) stopped by to check us out, and she was at least impressed by the feast, if not by the feasters.  Plus:  entertainment by Riley, perhaps our only third-generation hasher, and so adorable one must forgive her transforming from baby to toddler whilst one’s back was turned.  Somewhere in the turmoil, Strac and Kimball arrived at the garage door, DFL and fogging over in the eyeglasses.

Instead of taking a well-deserved birthday break, Mufti called the roll con brio.  There was something exciting about Greg – double 7s, maybe? – and of course bunches of people getting closer and closer to namings and re-namings.  Then Mufti double-checked his records, noticed he’d missed his own self, and counted one more closer to 1,500.  COtOD counted down to the birthday ‘sing’-a-long, BC3 brought out the blazing cake, and Valiant ducked away, on grounds that the Mufti is always in his heart so he needn’t linger over sugary treats.  Thank you, heroes!

Performing the difficult and dangerous candle-kiss with style and grace:  a perfect 10!

In case you were wondering, a convertible sports coupe driven by a successful amateur race-car driver can make a merely-chilly day seem fairly close to bitterly, freezingly, painfully, dangerously cold.  However, it makes an enjoyable perch for photography.  Check out the results here if you’d like.

Confidential to Spurt:  Happy 65^th.

GFH3 Run #1,719; 5 October 2013

Who, where, how far; someone fill me in, please.

For instance, did you see any wildlife on trail?

PS:  Blow in the Hole, I hope you didn't stay up all night waiting for me to post.  I was in the wild, without interwebs.

GFH3 Run #1,693; 20 April 2013

About 35 people gathered at Spurt's in Sterling, amidst sunshine, blue skies, colorful flowers in spring bloom and happy birds trilling their delight.  Strac showed off his knee scar some more, Easy Strider peddled syrup from a saddle bag, and Maggy and Peanut and Cammy and Abby and Kylie bumped noses and chatted a bit.  The group divided up into a dozen or so walkers and four runners.  So who were all those other people, who started out on the runners' trail but wound up back at Spurt's long before the real runners did, without having experienced at least two spider checks, a double-back-check, and a short sprint through a back yard?  You may characterize them however you wish, assuming there are no impressionable children around when you're doing your characterizing.

Yes, it's true -- Spurt, Paddle My Candee Ass and Cockpit Ejeculator committed hours of their day, their considerable brainpower, and a few sacks of flour to creating a devious and inspiring trail, and two-thirds of the pack was too confused, sleepy, ungrateful or some combination thereof actually to follow it.  The discipline in this group is whatever the opposite of inspiring is.

Yes, that's a check.  Spurt is famous for this sort of thing.

The semi-runners also missed out on a small but highly entertaining playground.  I wonder what the photos show about that...

At least they didn't miss the On In, which was chock-a-block with excitement.  There was lasagna with rolls and salad, and wine in a black box, and beer and stuff.  And there was the Mufti calling the roll, and Byte Me carrying out a darned fancy chocolate cake, with a big fat candle, in celebration of Dave's birthday, and a bonus cake that looked like flan or cheesecake or something (too busy hoovering up the chocolate shavings to get a definite read on that), and a terrifying caterwaul that passed for singing, and a birthday boy who doesn't seem to have caught on quite perfectly to the speech-giving protocol (there are no rules), and there was Jess there for her first run, and finally there was the Mufti, double-checking his lists only to discover... (whispering) he made a mistake.

Turns out it was Joyce's 100th run, and the fez came out, and the nicknames considered were, almost without exception, absolutely stupid as could be (Cums with Novocaine?  Really?).  But the final choice was pretty entertaining:  Beef Strokemoff.  That's the kind of thanks you can expect for feeding this group home-cooked gourmet extravaganzas.

YAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!

So Beef S. got her purple t-shirt, poignantly accepted the cup from her own daughter, took one mouthful of the beer-water-wine mix within, and, in tribute to her profession, rinsed briefly and spit the swill over the side of the deck.  Her heartfelt tribute to the joys (?!?) of hashing kept getting interrupted by cheers and shouting, so she quite reasonably gave up.  Probably wishes she'd tried that giving-up thing before she got a purple t-shirt that invites the world to think of her as "Beef Strokemoff."

I did not get a photo of the spitting, but most of the other stuff described is pictured here.

GFH3 Run #1,682; 2 Feb 2013

Again with the Great Falls! -- thanks to Hash Heroes Phoenix Rising and Chip Off the Old Dick.  We convened, as per, in the garage, which this week featured the innards of an entire race car, raised up on a sturdy table.  "Where does the food go?" I very reasonably asked PhR, and he pointed to some rickety card tables set up for the occasion.  A select group gathered slowly, perhaps reluctant to get going given around-freezing temps and rather cloudy skies.  They would, no doubt, have been more eager and appreciative of the weather had they all been woken at 1:00am, badgered from their warm beds by a de-ranged boyfriend, and shoved into a small Honda for a four-hour drive to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to stand around for two hours in a drunken, pot-smoking crowd in single-digit degrees Farenheit weather for the chance to listen, via an inadequate sound system, to a top-hatted someone on a distant stage say something about a woodchuck, and then drive four hours home again.  Love you, sweetie!  But I digress.

Big Wheel and Easy Strider dream of checkered-flag glory.

PhR helpfully explained a few techniques for discerning the differences between snow and flour as part of his hash brief.  Then the runners set out, at 3:15, into the landscaped woods path behind the house, while the walkers headed down the driveway to find their own bliss through the hilly local side streets.  I think there were about 12-15 runners, including sweeper COtOD, and about 8-10 walkers, including Gale and Melisande, who set their own out-and-back via the early part of the runners' trail.  I hopped into a truck with PhR, several bottles of water and a Gatorade, and a sack of pink flour to put the final flourishes on the trail markings.

PhR and COtOD benefit from a bridle path and a couple of helpful neighbors:  a yoga-teacher friend of Susan's who permitted use of her driveway, and the local who sold most of his land for development but retained several acres of perimeter for use by his ATVs and our hash group.  Gosh, do we love sensible and neighborly neighbors.

The pack kept itself together pretty well, with the help of a few strategically-placed backchecks, until near the end, when FRB and first-timer Al (and I, now descended from my truckly perch) got well and truly screwed up despite those 30 pounds of flour, and Easy Strider and Zipperhead caught up to us, and then The (not-very) Manic Mechanic came skipping down a hill, and then they all ran around in several directions whilst I continued my stroll until I encountered a backcheck five at the top of a hill.  After that, I don't know what the trail did as I rather 'zenned' myself to the On In very inefficiently, weeping silently.

T(n-v)MM missed a big pink 'X' (so did PhR and I, when we drove along to be sure it was still there -- caught it on the way back, though) and so ran up a small paved hill, then realized his error, leapt a fence, crossed a rough field, leapt another fence, and caught up with the FRBs within about half a mile, in time for a nice backcheck.

And what did I find back at the garage?  You know what - delicious, hot fried rice and sesame green beans and kung-pao-ish chicken and other yummy things.  Plus -- another half-dozen or so "hashers" who came for the social exercise and skipped all that pedestrian (ha ha) running and such, bringing the total group to about 30.  BC3 reported on an idyllic Caribbean vacation with books and warm ocean and not much else, as one needs nothing else.  A few of the kindlier folks speculated as to where Air Horn, Spurt and Chugger might be, they having gotten themselves well and truly separated from the group and even the sweeper.  They made it back in the middle of the roll call, to loud acclaim and threats of dire reprisals (i.e., no credit for the run) from the Mufti, sparkling with the vigor of a deservedly well-vacationed leader.  The Mufti requested a vote as to who would win the Super Bowl.  I just (typing this part Sunday evening) heard a commentator say that his heart was for the Ravens, but his head believed the 49ers would win, and the GF Hash counted eleven heads to nine hearts.  Those of you putting hands up for the 49ers will all go back to 99 runs the next time I get ahold of that official roll, and Oral Advocate can no doubt think up something worse.

And now it's Monday morning, and I have only this to say:  Neener, neener, neener, boo-boo!

Kiley snoozed amidst the chaos, Abby ate everything dropped on the ground, including a fortune-cookie wrapper (an alert Blazing Straddle actually prevented that last), two first-timers, Al and Judith, won their cheers, and Hasher Flasher celebrated her 300th by choosing (?!) 'Pink Parts' as her new name.  Still the First Lady having left by that time, Pink Parts had no one willing to explain the full implications of the phrase.  [UPDATE:  On learning what pink parts are in StFL's lexicon, PP changed her name to Bionic Babe.]  The party was only enhanced by PhR driving a couple of convertibles into the party space to get them out of the newly-falling snow.

Speaking of StFL, we were graced with the company of six of our 1,000-run runners, as the pictures prove.  Trivia question:  which 1,000-run hasher was missing?  Bonus points if you know which 30-plus-year hasher who hasn't hit 1,000 was missing.

INDY and I are vacationing next weekend.  Radar, if you take photos (or anyone else does), please e-mail them to me and I'll post them early next week.  Anyone who wants can e-mail me meeting commentary and I'll put that up here.  Enjoy the Valentine's Day hash, and do please wear red!

GFH3 Run #1,676; 29 Dec 2012

On the Day That Couldn't Make Up Its Mind, we got a little snow, a little slush, a bit of rain, some wind... and right about 3:00pm we got a clearing in the clouds that revealed beautiful blue skies luminous with golden sunshine.  Ah, lovely -- albeit freezing cold.

Despite the uncertainty in the skies, 25 of us made it to the Algonkian Parkway and Spurt's home, where he and Lezley had spent the early afternoon setting trail with flour, blue flour, chalk and an occasional squirt of spray paint in case everything else melted or washed away.  The Mufti reminded us that there will be a big ole party (plus some irritating exercise-y stuff) at Byte Me! and Eat It Raw's home at 11:00am on New Year's Day.  See you there!

Our heroic hares answer the eternal question, "Where's the second check?"

But first... Spurt pointed to a big floury circle on his driveway, and we're off... in three different directions... which eventually resolved themselves to the correct one.  The walkers wandered pathwards, well-bundled, while the runners slipped and skidded down the slick pavement.  Spurt and Lezley sent them on a compact circle that didn't take much time but required the resolution to slop through woods full of both obvious and carefully-camouflaged puddles and rivulets and minor ponds flooded with ice water.  So everyone made it back in less than an hour, but with sneakers full of slush and semi-frozen toes.

You can see how avoiding the water hazard might be a skosh tricky.

Good thing there was a big pot of turkey chili on the stovetop, waiting for hungry hashers to dish up and decorate with cheese and sour cream and corn bread and salad and vegetable lasagna.  Yum!  There was also good beer in cans -- if someone gets up the nerve to add a comment (just click the "[No] Comments" link below, type away in the box that appears, then choose "Anonymous" from the 'Post As' drop-down menu, and hit "Publish"), you can confirm this and specify the type.  Given my respiratory distress, I'm sticking with water for now.

The magnificent Mufti called the roll, with three hearty cheers for head chef Susan.  No newcomers today; no significant injuries; plenty of witty repartee.  Photos are available for those who like that sort of thing.