Run #69 – The Here We Go Again Run Rehashed

There could be no more fitting place to start the National Week run then at the foot of the great Chairman Mao statue. Given that half of our usual runners were still returning from their travels, a great turnout was not expected; but Torvil and Dean, Barbie, S&M, Battery Operated and your scribe Bestiality all made it, with varying degrees of punctuality. Fortunately, Hentai as solo hare did not return to the start to draw the circle until 20 minutes past the start time, at which point everyone was ready to go.

The trail started towards the looming hills behind the Zheda campus, and with the pack musing about the amount of mud on Hentai when he finally showed up to his own run, many (read: all) were feeling less than enthusiastic and the possibility of just waiting in a local tea shop for an hour was raised then reluctantly dismissed. Soon the trail headed into the bush, where the pack were to encounter an unauthorised “?” symbol at the end of the trail. After some discussion about what Hentai might have meant by this, the general consensus was that it can be hard enough to work out what he is trying to tell you on the best of days, and thus we should ignore his cryptic messages lest they drive us batty.

Despite predictions, the trail did not climb the large hill, but instead would its way through the Botanical Gardens where the beautiful scenery and smell of blossoming flowers had everyone appreciating the special city we live in. Everyone EXCEPT Torvil, who had taken a call early in the run, and managed to stay on his cellphone for 42 minutes! This was not the only offense Torvil was guilty of, as he also followed Battery Operated’s lead of trail wetting (although BO gets a special mention for borrowing tissues before the run and thus premeditating her crime). Apparently they were not the only ones to eschew the W.C in favour of a natural alternative; at one point my call of “watch out for the dog doo!” was met with the response “What sort of dog uses a tissue to wipe afterwards!?” Apparently a Chinese dog I guess.

Back to the course, and the trail artfully wound its way through the gardens as the small pack was forced to run all forks themselves (except Torvil, who at one point was spotted reclining on a park bench with his phone to his ear while he waited for others to sort out where the maze of a trail would go) before getting the all clear to make for home plate.
After a small sprint for first place honours (which I won, but not without a solid challenge from Battery Operated, who vowed to beat me next time) a small but rowdy circle was formed and after comments about the level of singing at the previous few circles, the full compliment of songs were sung with something approaching gusto.
On On!