Saturday 3 November 2012

Run 66 3rd November 2012 Tiverton Sorepoint and Paperwork

Words for A2B The Trout Inn, Tiverton 3/11/12
When Cousteau and I first got to the car park, there weren’t even any hares! Slightly alarming at ten past twelve. However soon Paraprick and Larks arrived, followed by the hares and Bell Toll. Faced with a ratio of runners to hares of 4 to 2, we decided to wait for the hashers held up in traffic. A pack of ten set off at around 1.15 with Cousteau vanishing out of sight up a hill.
It was one dot and on, but a decent rainstorm had washed out nearly half the marks, making it tricky at junctions to know whether there once was a check or not.
I plodded on along some good rutted boggy tracks, overtaken by Manpig and paperwork before an argument ensued about a backwards fishhook (Manpig claimed to have thought he’d found the on home fishhook and unsuccessfully tried to refuse to do it.)
Technically, I was the second to arrive at the fishhook as Cousteau had evidently invented a check and gone loping off up a hill, only to re-emerge along the track behind us, though he had been way out in front. Manpig and I dutifully returned to the hare (nice to have a small pack!). Paperwork allowed Cousteau and I to check up a monster hill before laying the arrow down to the basin of the valley.
We ran along into a hamlet and a Long/Short split. I thought we were about due a beer stop and chose to do the shorts with Sorepoint, Zombie and Archangel – and cheerfully watched in the distance the longs trudging up the worst hill imaginable- muddy, slippery, on a camber, very long, very steep!!
Wonderful beer stop in the valley bowl before setting off (Kura being unceremoniously shoved into the car with a “have your bloody dog back” by Paraprick) up some more hills. I was
making good headway up a particularly steep one as the support cars drove past and heard a rustling….turned to see a grinning Cousteau sprint past. AGAIN, Paperwork let us get well and truly out of sight- it was only when we clocked no one was following did we turn back, and find him giggling in a hedge, and everybody else somewhere in the dripping woods. Cheers.
Thoughts such as “It must end soon” “how high can this hill be?” were my only companions until we reached a farm and its bemused farmer, who’d witnessed a bloke run one way then the other, then back to kick out a check, then off again…..We’d caught up with Cousteau :O)
We carried on through cow fields (the sort that look like baby Jerseys but actually are vicious beasts that regularly eat people) and wiping the sweat and rain from our eyes, stared gormlessly at the next incline that seemed to disappear into the dark clouds. With no choice we start to climb. And climb. And climb. It’s like running up an escalator the wrong way.
Sure that my chest was about to explode, I slowed to walk, only to find my gait rather like John Wayne- my calves were seizing up from the arduous ascents and jarring downhills. Luckily, It was only another mile or so to the next beer stop, but I was increasingly sure Id missed a check somewhere as I was on my own for a good while, and then suddenly there was a mass of colour on the horizon- id somehow missed the trail, and been overtaken. Relieved, everybody stuffed down enough sausage rolls and fruit pastilles to feed a pack twice the size, then set off again into country lanes. This time Man Pig went haring off into the distance and had to play catch up as the rest of us hit the fields- we were high enough to come across radio masts at this point.
More tumbling down rocky, wet leaved paths and onto a road with ON HOME boldly proclaimed – I had ParaPricks good company for the last leg into the Rose and Crown.
Everbody got changed apart from me (having not particularly thought ahead) and on in to the warm. Down downs were awarded thus:
Me (Lilo Lil) for skipping during the hash and texting on the hash, and a facebook photo.
Paraprick for sucking off Sorepoint “it doesn’t wanna come out does it!” was heard, and “its hard AND soft here”
Paperwork- for starting an in depth discussion on Fisting….deer that is.
Manpig – for tracking Costeaus footprints in the mud
Costeau- for failing to kick out checks while 4.3 miles ahead.
Archangel – for vicious washing of the dog :O))

NOTICE: on the 14th December Hotlips and Zoot are playing music and various hashers are brewing beer for the Beer and Jazz day! Raising money for Rowcroft Hospice. St Marys carpark, in Kingskerswell . See Archangel for details :O)

ON ON!! Lilo x