PAN ASIA HASH – (Ball Breaker Trail)

Well, this was my 7th hash trail over 15 kms this year, several of them were Ball Buster trails for various events, like EUROHASH, UK Nash, Thai Nash, and INTERAM, but they were mostly flat. EuroHash was the longest at 25.5 Kms, but only had 400 M of ascent. Thai Nash had the most ascent at 580 meters over 20 kms, but I was one of the hares on that one and we set it the day before the event. Today, knowing full well that the trail was described as 23 kms, with 1300 M of ascent, I foolishly signed up with overconfidence. I say all that to say this . . . trail today BROKE MY BALLS. They announced a cutoff of 2 hours 50 minutes at the second drink stop at 12 kms. We all thought, no sweat, should be no problem.

WELL, stats for today were . . . 168 signed up for the BB trail, 147 turned up this morning on the buses, and only 84 finished the whole trail. Dozens did not make the cut off time, including my fat old ass. We gathered up at the second drink stop, and they sent us on an alternate 4 km route back to the park. I am actually quite happy I missed the cutoff, as some hashers that made it, were out for over 7 hours. The second half of trail was even more brutal than the first. Several of the finishers boasted of 24-25 kms for actual trail, but one dude who had a couple issues finding trail, came in at 32 kms . . . WTH. For us poor slobs that missed the cutoff, we only covered 16 kms with our shortcut back to the finish.

Overall, it was a great day, and we all had a splendid time once we dropped a few beers down our gullets to ease the pain.Read more