Venue: Ladang Sungei Gapi
Hare: Patsy Yap
Co-hare: Jimmy
Comic: Mike Rickard / Alyvia Hor
Scribe: Laurence
The traffic on the Rawang bypass was light, the queue-jumping beyond was no worse than usual, there was no police bribe-stop beyond Serendah (just wait for Merdeka and Hari Raya!) and the parking was easy, so a good-sized pack set off into the oil palm on time at 4.30.
So all was right in the world.
Or was it?
My supersticious sweat-glands (which are one seventeenth Chinese) had picked up some bad omens, so I knew we were in for trouble:
(1) It had been a hot, hot, hot day, with the sun beating down relentlessly on poor Malaya, and its sun-burnt inhabitants were wilting like pansies in a sauna.
(2) Mike Moore had come under-dressed, and had borrowed my 'magic socks' (leaving me with only Dutch monstrosities), so I knew I would have little chance of coming home before Peter "The Runner from Down-Un'er" Cann, or even Fierce Gay Boy, recently recovered from his torchlight ankle.
(3) Jimmy "African Mule" (to his friends) / "Dog Shit" (to people who really know him) Leggett was a co-hare.
(4) The feng shui was awful.
After a short jog through the palm, we entered what felt like jungle and found the first check by a hut near a stream. It was, inevitably, a back check, leading back & left into palm and eventually out into a huge recently-cleared area of open earth.
The second check was at the far-left side of this sun-trap, and half the pack was grilling like a shrimp on a Bondi barbie before it was solved - down 5 feet into a narrow ditch, and up 8 feet the other side. I know Patsy's an Iron Woman, but does she think she's training marines now?
There followed a lot more palm - in fact, we didn't see anything other than palm oil for the last 6km of the run! All this monoculture looks the same to me, but I'll try to impose some structure on it:
First we ended up in a steep valley, with a check solved the other side of a muddy stream, or was it? After descending with ropes and parachutes, and leaping across the water, we ended up going left and crossing again to meet the pack almost where we'd been 5 minutes earlier, then continuing along a very open track (in the hot hot sun) on the left side of a small lake.
At this point, the sun got too much for poor Colin H, who imagined that he saw something white on the opposite shore. He decided his gammy leg could swim better than it ran, leapt into the crocodile-infested swamp, swam around for a while chasing his water bottle, and finally reached the opposite side, only to discover that all that glistens is not paper.
I also struggled to catch up with Mike 'unnaturally fast" Moore for about the fourth time - him fresh as a daisy and fit as a fiddle, me staggering like an old man. Definitely those magic socks - I hope they come back - clean would be nice, but preferably not washed above 40 degrees as that can affect the magic, if you believe the label. Drip-dry only, but either way up is fine - magic socks aren't as gravity-sensitive as lucky horse-shoes.
The non-amphibious runners continued along more open trails, through sparse palm that gave less protection than a fish-net umbrella, and I think there must have been another check or two along the way. Wise old hashers were spotted going off in strange directions, and lazy girls were frequently seen coming backwards along the trail, but I am assured that we weren't going round in circles like the vultures hungrily flying above us.
Around this time, young Alister Beck responded to a comment about rhe run by saying "It's like the story about the two cows".
I waited a minute for hm to tell us the aforementioned joke, but there was only silence.
"What story about the two cows?", I asked.
"Sorry, I meant the story about the two bulls., he responded.
Another pregnant pause, another long silence.
I'm still waiting to hear the joke about the two cows, bulls, water buffalo, or whatever they were, so if anyone knows it, please email to onsec@ph3.org
Finally our spirits were raised by the sight of distant storm clouds, and also by the fact that we were nearly home.
Someone spotted the road, and then the hash-mobiles, and the previously lack-lustre front-runners summoned up the energy to run in - straight into Jimmy's open arms, to be handed freebies!
Front-runner was in after about 1 hour 20. People's GPS's argued about the distance, but it was about 9km.
A hare can be forgiven almost any run if she/he hands out a freebie at the end, and a pair of shorts (a nice change from all those t-shirts) certainly mollified most of the pack, so we ended up saying "It was a bit sunny" instead of "Jimmy, you evil bastard!".
Also, Patsy and Jimmy, who had started in the early afternoon, said that the midday sun had almost killed them, so we were lulled into a false sense of forgiveness.
The beer also helped, and just when we were tucking into our first cold ones, the heavens opened, proving my bad omens correct - it looked like being the worst of both worlds, a hot sunny run and a cold rainy mosquito-infested circle!
Luckily the heavens closed again in time for people to shower and attend the circle in the dry.
It was only at the circle, when everyone wearing the free new shorts was called up on a charge, that we discovered the terrible truth - they were powder blue and very snug fitting in the nether regions - suitable only for girls and poofters!
That's fine for the girls and poofters, but what about the other 5 of us?
For me, it was a choice between going to the Frangipani club and letting it all hang out, and quietly putting them in the wife's wardrobe. You'll be pleased to hear that Mrs Renshaw now has a nice new pair of shorts.
I was charged for my irritating complaints about Gary Waring's extra-long Victorian-footballer-style shorts, but I think he only did that to impress his hot new girlfriend. He didn't mention that he'd uncharacteristically been carrying a backpack on the trail, and I stil wonder whether that was because he's a gentleman (carrying water in case his young lady was thirsty) or because he's not (carrying who knows what, for a quick shag in the bushes).
As for the circle, all the way back at the Equatorial restaurant near the N-S highway, I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened, but hopefully someone will update this report later and I can learn if Patsy & Jimmy got what they deserved!