Hares - Ninja Winja & Italian (Hand) Job

"You know hashes are taking over your life when…". Complete and discuss.

You know hashes are taking over your life when you are praying for rain to break the spell of gorgeous, blue-sky, sunshine-abundant winter days of Hong Kong so that the spattering of chalk markings and flour along the trails can be washed away. I guess I had been on one too many hashes in the last few weeks and got lost/confused because of double markings from past runs.

Well, what I didn't expect was rain falling on a Wednesday, and Wednesday evening to be precise. What turn out to be one of the coldest days of the year started at exactly 6pm and by run start, it was pissing down. To make things even more challenging, it was race night at Happy Valley which meant awful traffic along Harcourt Road, which meant almost everyone in the already small pack was late. Piss Perfect, Free Wheel and I found ourselves stuck on bus #6 and moving along so slowly that it made more sense to walk.

After a flurry of emails on the blackberry with Hopeless to make sure that the hares would not leave without me, we finally got to the start fifteen minutes late. Hares Ninja Winja and Italian (Hand) Job quickly gave us instructions: no Wimp/Rambo split, we used flour but don't know how long they can stand in the rain, be careful in the shiggy.

So off we went, the late-comers, and soon it was just Dr Evil and I chugging along Tai Tam Reservoir Road in the cold. Apparently Piss Perfect's slight nausea and dizziness got progressively worse after hearing the instructions from the hares, so he went home. The man needs to HTFU.

A sharp left on the reservoir road brought us up the shiggy to Jardine's Lookout. Climbing up huge boulders on a hash night is fun, but with rain the rocks are extra fun. Well, only if you have proper grippy shoes. The trail took us to the Quarry, onto Mount Butler Road and up to the Wireless Station. A bit of a confusion there as the trail went cold along Sir Cecil's so after a bit of doubling back, the pack got back on the path with Macau Drunk leading the charge.

Another check at the end of Sir Cecil's took us down the shiggy - now this prompted a déjà vu and I was racking my brains trying to remember which hash it was that I did last week that took me to this section. Only at the bottom of the hill where we got a large checkback that it started coming back to me - the Friday Hash epic run set by Thermal Dick (it took the FRBs over 2 hours). I figured that it must be the same route so I turned left at the "sewage stream" and the (melting) blobs of flour confirmed it.

On home along Cloud View Road and to the (dripping) pagoda at North Point Service Reservoir Playground. Lovely run in the cold rain and great effort by the hares - probably a job too well done as the bill for the flour ran up to $180 (they set the run on Monday, then on Tuesday morning, then again on Tuesday afternoon at 5pm). It should also be noted that Free Wheel managed to get to the On On in just under 3 hours. Oh, and Cnutshy got to run start so late he had to carry his duffel bag all the way to "B", complete with the carton of strawberry-flavoured soy milk.

You know hashes are taking over your life when… you run in the freezing rain through shiggy and over boulders with a carton of strawberry-flavoured soy milk in your duffel bag.