Every year the Chiang Mai Hash House Harriers goes out of our way to make a punishingly long trail run for our members and the people that visit. Most of the time our trail runs are around 6km but the ballbreaker is meant to be half a marathon. This is not for the weak but it also has at least 3 bailout points on trail and every year most of the people end up using the bailouts.
Those who want top honors not only must complete the half-marathon but they also must drink at least 3 beers during the run. Every year only a handful of people make it the entire way through and this year was not an exception.
For those of us that regularly participate this is a group of mostly familiar faces but it was nice that we got a few visitors from Phuket, Bangkok, Pattaya, and even the mostly dead kennel from Samui. It was also a nice mix of men and women and the planning and logistics went off without a hitch.
Although we don't always go to the same place, this year's ballbreaker was in the same place as last year at the lovely area of Doi Sakat. This rather large nature preserve is just a fantastic mix of hills as well as flats and the fact that there are so many trails that already exist make the job easier for the Hares who make the trails for us the week before the run.
This is no small task for the people who make the trails for us. The idea is that we keep it reasonably safe but also not make it predictable and never make it the same thing that happened in years prior. This would be severely frowned upon so this is why we normally will ask for an extra Hare or two since the job is so big making nearly 30km of fresh trail.
As is usually the case in the many years that I have been doing this, people started out talking and walking and socializing and after a mile or so the FRB's (front running bastards) will take off from the pack to put their position at the front. This is a game of self-preservation because although some of our members would be considered in "decent" shape, it is a big ask for someone to keep moving for nearly 30km in the hilly environment. You gotta preserve your energy no matter how badly you want to be in front. Also, the checkpoints are specifically designed to slow the faster runners down because they have to discover the true trail. There have been many points where I have passed the same person a dozen times during a trail run because the time I spend looking for the true trail gives them the chance to catch up with the people at the front. That is kind of the entire idea as to why these checkpoints exist.
There was a lot of good variety in scenery and nobody got hurt. With nearly 50 people in attendance, all but 11 of the participants took advantage of one of the bailout points. There is no prize other than pride for getting back faster than other people so if you are ever participating in a Hash event just know that getting back before the rest of the pack is more than likely simply going to earn you more time on the ice after the fact. That is unless you are awarded the "wings" which is an award of sorts that is just kind of arbitrarily handed out to a random person based on their performance, or lack thereof.
It was a fantastic day and it is an event that not just our own kennel looks forward to, but several sister Hash chapters enjoy coming and participating with us. The people in Pattaya, Phuket, and Bangkok tend to not be as active as us because the areas they live in do not have as much open space as we do here in Chiang Mai so doing a long run isn't really an option for them. So I suppose in a way they look forward to us organizing this run every year just to mix things up a bit and for them to experience something that is either extremely difficult or impossible for them to do on their own.
That's another ballbreaker in the books! my person 5th and for others it has been many more than that.
On On!
