St Pete H3 Trail #151

Another first for me, the St Pete hash started up just after I left Tampa back in 2014, so joined them for their second annual Purple Dress Hash. Had a good turn out, with about 30 hashers joining in. We set off at about 1930, and made our way through the dark streets following dollops of flour (marked with a tennis ball), but were soon disappointed to find that the marks were rather spread out and inconsistent. We actually missed the first beer check, which was less than a mile into trail (so no great loss), and eventually found the shot stop. After waiting for some of the pack to catch up, I took off again and took a while to find trail again, due to many turns that were not marked in any way, just random zigging and zagging. At this point, I was sadly reminded that boob checks and fish hooks are popular here, and had to stand and wait, and then had to run backwards to pass off a shot from the fish hook. So in the end, the true trail of 2.25 miles, allowed me to run nearly 4 miles. But the kicker was, the pack of nearly 20 walkers meandered along, and ended up spending over an hour at the beer stop. So the few of us that actually ran the trail were sitting at the finish waiting for over an hour for the pack to show up. WTF . . . how much fun is that, just to stand around for nothing? I would have left sooner, but had to wait for a friend who rode to the hash with me. Guess I will be driving solo in the future, so early departures will be a thing if this is going to be the norm here in Tampa now. All good, I can adjust in fine fashion. Will be cheaper in the long run as I can get my run in, and enjoy my beers at home. :o)

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