We arrived at the run site, after initially heading to the wrong location - I thought I heard someone mention Genting Valley, so I charged off to the usual site after failing to notice the hash sign at the junction prompting us not to turn left; anyway finally made it about ten minutes later. Pulled into a fairly scruffy looking plantation area and found a place to park amongst the aged looking palms.
Things didn't look too promising and with the weather starting to cloud over I had serious doubts about the rather meagre looking tarpaulin arrangement that was being hastily erected - no way we're all going to fit under that if starts coming down, I thought to myself. Trust the brits to try and do everything on the cheap.
Anyway,come 4.30, it was still dry so we set off on the run: we had been warned that there was a short and a longer run but it was too early to think about that.
The first half of the run proved to be the usual Hugh Murray affair, though I think Nick Morss also had a hand in it. With the typical pandemonium and confusion at many of the barely legal checks, it was remarkable that we even made it to the drink stop, where, as mentioned earlier, the run divided into a longer and a shorter one. I noticed that we'd already been out more than an hour and a half so I was starting to have second thoughts about attempting the longer stint as it was supposedly a whopping extra eight miles, "miles" mind you, I don't even want to think about that in kms, the preferred measure of distance for those under fifty, apart from those damn Yanks mind you.!
Not being one to take the easy way out I thought, "what the heck" and headed off down the longer trail. Thankfully, Mr Murray either can't read a G.P.S.or does'nt know the difference between Miles and Kilometres as actually, according to one of my compatriots' G.P.S.,it was a little over 6kms extra, which was quite enough as it was already starting to get dark.
After getting back and having a couple of beers and a wash up I realised whilst not having a nice new shirt to put on "hey, aren't we supposed to have a nice new T-shirt to put on now".
I spotted one of the Brits, usually the guy in charge of this department, Mister Charles Lee and voiced my concern of the lack of new apparel. How foolish of me I realised later as all of us Aussies were up on the box being charged for whinging about the lack of said items, which weren't actually non-existent as we may have thought, but with-held by the wily Brits in an attempt to make people stay for the food. Luckily for them it worked as the dinner was not the usual cheap-skate deal normally dished out by the Brits but was a sumptuous banquet of traditional English fare made up of sausages ,mash, Yorkshire puddings, pork crackling and other tasty tit-bits followed up by bread and butter pudding with custard. Well done to the ladies Rita and Juliana for an excellent job.
We eventually got the T-shirts, the only T-shirts being given out that night as the run was later judged an on-down if I remember correctly.
Anyway the proceedings carried on with some entertainment and humorous skits provided by Paul Kirkman and co. and some more charges amongst the Brits and all in all, a good time was had by everyone. Thanks to all for a good effort.
St George's Run Accounts
Please see St_George_Accounts_2010.xls (MS-Excel file) for the full accounts for this run. As well as showing all the contributors where their money went, it may be useful for other groups planning to organise a similar event.