On Wednesday, I “co-hared” my first hash. These are the
organised runs with chalk markings that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago,
that I am really getting into. “Haring” is what you do when you are the one
going out with the chalk and setting a route for others to follow. As I like to
organise and plan, and have quite a bit of time on my hands at the moment, I
wanted to learn how to do this from an old hand, before taking one on myself.
This picture shows Frank, the other hare, setting what is
called a “check”. The runners reach a point where you could several routes. You
draw a symbol with arrows indicating the possible routes; but only one is
correct. This slows up the front runners, as they have to run down all the
routes and check which is right.
Frank and I set 16km plus of trail, with all the false tracks.
To do it, we climbed at least 1500 feet; ran on roads, footpaths, bridges and
trails; scrambled down a stream bed (no easy matter after the recent rain); and
used countless boxes of chalk. By the end, I was the more tired of the two of
us…even though Frank had checked this route a few days ago himself, as well as
just completed a 20km race this weekend over the 2 mountains.
Oh, and Frank is 70 years old…
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