I'd like to say that the Ballbreaker event went off without a hitch in order to promote our organization but that would be a lie and since we aren't ever really actively recruiting, I should just go ahead and tell the truth. This year's even was a bit of a mess and it is something that we need to apologize for.
There was a lot of complaining this year and even though I am a pretty die-hard dedicated member, I will agree with the people who were complaining. Mistakes were made this year and it is something that we do and are taking very seriously.
For starters, and this is a big issue and I wasn't even aware of it is that normally people look forward to the annual Ballbreaker shirts which were not provided this year. Instead, just a patch was given. This was a big letdown to a lot of members and they were rightfully upset. The reasons for this is because there has been a bit of a political struggle in the leadership locally and some squabbles between members resulted in a last-minute cancellation of the shirts. We shouldn't allow our internal problems affect the people that attend the event and for that we apologize. I am currently working on designing a shirt to send out to all the people who attended and will mail it to them. Sorry! But even I didn't know about this until the day of.
Another thing that went terribly wrong was that the trail was far too difficult. The Ballbreakers is supposed to be more difficult than usual trails that we do, and longer, it isn't, however, supposed to be dangerous and this year's trail was quite dangerous.
For every year's Ballbreaker, we are intentionally vague about the terrain and even the specific location of the run because we want it to be a surprise for those that are attending. Unless someone spills the beans, the people on the busses have no idea where the event is taking place until they arrive there that day. This is part of the allure.
This time though, too few people were involved in the planning of the event and one of the Hares (the person who sets the trail) decided to make this one particularly punishing. The hills were more like barely traversal mountains, and there was a lot of slipping and falling, and even several injuries, which is something we always want to avoid.
We were warned that the first section of the trail was going to be the worst one, and boy was it ever. For the better part of 90 minutes all of us were subjected to barely ever being on stable ground and it was quite common for rocks to go crashing down the hill towards the people behind you. Going downhill was no better because it was necessary to hang onto trees in order to keep one's footing. Many people compared the downhill portions to skiing because they would frequently end up in a slide that could only be stopped by grabbing a tree or by falling. When you consider that many of these declines end in a gorge or cliff, this is not ok. Thankfully nobody fell into one of these gorges.
Another valid complaint was that the "trail" wasn't really a trail at all. This was wild and untouched jungle that isn't even used for any agricultural purpose due to the steep nature of the environment. Therefore, a lot of people were in danger of getting lost at all times and even though rescue was there and we had a drone operator with us as well, getting lost in the vast expanse of the Chiang Mai jungle is a very bad thing.
Lastly, the time we alotted for the run was not enough and this can be boiled down to poor planning as well. The people who finished the entire trail came back in near darkness and all of them admitted they started to have a very real fear of ending up out in the jungle when "the lights went out."
30 participants started the full trail, only 8 finished it. The other 22 bailed out early at the safety stops. We recognize that this is not normal nor is it acceptable, and the necessary steps are being taken to both offer refunds and to ensure that this doesn't happen again in the future.
While I don't want to call anyone in particular out or point blame in any one direction, much of these problems are the direct result of some people who wanted to make this Ballbreaker particularly memorable for its difficulty. Unfortunately for them, they accomplished their goal but at the expense of basically nobody enjoying it. This is the opposite of what we want these events to be and hopefully the people who came along - especially the 8 people that completed the entire trail - can forgive us and believe when we say that we will do better in the future.
Because of the clandestine nature of the event itself, there is virtually no oversight and the main change that we are going to make going forward is that we are going to have more "eyes" on the creation of the trail. This year's run was more like a military exercise than a bit of exercise in nature, and it really shouldn't be like that.
For those of you that did come and attend, you have our sincere apologies and a promise that we are making the necessary changes and will do better. For those of you that are missing your shirt, I will get one to you.
Keep the faith! An organization such as ours that has been around for as long as we have is going to make a mistake every now and then. We are just happy that nobody was seriously injured in this event and we are going to ensure that all future events do not have this same aspects to them.
See you on the next trail
On On!
