Victoria Hash House Harriers Runs - 2020

 The 28^th Annual 12 Stops of Christmas Run didn't happen this year on account of there being  'to many Coronas', according to Whoremoan.  Whoremoan's first 12 Stops was in 1993, and it has run continuously until this year.  If there was a creed for the 12 Stops it could be 'neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night stays the 12 Stop', but that doesn't include COVID-19.

The eeelectronic Annual (hopefully not) General Pissup and Run eVote.
A herculean effort was made by Stroke Alone, and Blue Balls to establish a vote@vh3.ca email list of 54 hashers who had come out in 2020.  Stroke install a free mailing list manager call Mailman to send out nomination requests, an invitation to a Google Meet pre-Vote online meeting held Sunday the 22^nd of November, information on how to vote, and a reminder of an AGPU Zoom meeting to announce the winners.  That mailing list was based on years of accumulated email addresses compiled by Stroke, emails addresses exported from the soon to disappear Yahoo! Groups mailing list, knowledge from anyone who might also have email address of hashers, and the VH3 Participation Google Sheets spreadsheet for 2020.  Stroke installed and application call Lime Survey on the web site.  Blue learned to use it and established a VH3 Votes set of question that came from VH3 hashers, and nominations for the 2021 Mismanagement.  Hasher connected to the survey and voted-in the new Mismanagement. There were some last minute adjustment made:  The hound elected Blue Balls to two positions (to punish him for being so useful).  He chose to bow out of the On Sec position (he didn't want to be that useful), handing it to Dikkus.  The Webmeister pointed-out the recently posted VH3 COVID-19 2020 Booking Summary (with nifty links to the runs booked that year), and said, 'now that there is an On Sec' that he wouldn't be doing any booking in 2021.  Dikkus pleaded for help, so a second On Sec position was created.  That got handed to Some Bitch C', as a runner up for the position.  The role of Hash Hour Coordinator was abandoned as there were no Hashy Hours foreseeable, but some argued that a Hash Cheerleader could still be of use.  Following that it was determined that a second RA would be nice to have to handle event that were split into more than one group.  Of course there was no run, and the run number was carried over to the next event.

The 25^th Annual Goldstream Park Salmon Run
This run was the silver jubilee of the Gold Stream Salmon run. Silver marks a 25^th anniversary, also known as a quadranscentennial anniversary.  In any case I got there late for the second group, but didn't miss the group photo, because there wasn't one.  We did get our region photographed, and that was good, as we had a naming.  Run photos get really confusing when there are photos from two different groups.  We had a 1:30 PM and a 2:30 PM group of 10 to 15 runners and walkers.  I initial headed in the right direction to soon hear the cries of 'on on' way below me. Slowed by rough terrain, I cross the familiar log over the stream (first used in 2002 on run 316), and I soon cough up to hashers near the highway.  For November the weather was good.  No snow. No sleet.  No rain.  The normal amaretto with hot blueberry tea and beer were very welcome. The first Goldstream run was set by Cliffbanger & Hot Nuts on run 181.  In the bundle of photos from this run, Hot Nut included some very old scanned photos (there were no digital camera in 1997), taken on the first Goldstream run 181 (for which, unit now I have no photos).  Those are very small and hard to make out, so I am going to see if I can get better version of the photos. Currently the earliest Salmon run photo gallery is the 1998 run 210 set by Hot Nuts & Testicular.  On this quadranscentennial run we had visitor Shitty Shoes, her dad Crive, and mom No Woman, and Vertically Challenged.  For letting her hound Zoe off leash Just Marni got herself named "Bitch Gone Wild".  Zoe was named "Tripping Hazard".

The Halloween Costume Hash
In the age of COVID-19 Halloween can't be stopped. The rabble was divided into a 3PM and a 4:30 PM groups, to keep number to 10 or less runners and 5 or less walkers.  A costume contest was held, but I got silence when I asked who the winners had been. The 3PM group were the first to test an apartment dwellers 3rd floor, alleyway, tricky treat delivery system using a row and pulley system (see the video to the right).  The Hares were going to start the run at their place, but two days before the run Dr. Bonnie Henry increase efforts to contain COVID-19, with one of the new measures being a ban of non-resident meeting up in the yard of home owners.  Fortunately Blackwood park was only 3 blocks away.  Hashers followed trail down town into Chinatown, with the bottom of the loop being the Capital Iron parking lot.  A treat and libation stop was set at a small patch of trees at the corner of Bay and Wark street.  Three blocks west of that in an alley between Graham and Fifth Street was the second impromptu treat stop at the Graham Manor (in the video), not at all a planned stop.

The three images to the right represents a collections of winter art done by the students of Marigold Elementary school (click on each to expand). The Back to School Run was to be a text-book run, with walkers and runners' routes that interacted with one another, and examples of all the regular trail marks including the not often used BFC.  - which is not currently in the VH3 Gallery of Trail Marks.  Setting a hash trail is all about location, and within running distance from the start are some 6 parks, and 3 schools.  Originally the start was going to be at Spectrum High, but during scouting on the Saturday prior to the run I discovered that only on Saturdays is the parking lot for Spectrum closed, so the start got moved to École Marigold, and the BC moved to lower Marigold park.  Then when setting the trail near Marigold park I saw a lot of kids in the area, who will endanger your trail marks.  As the X's in the park were strategic (see the map), due to how close the trail came to the BC, I planned-in a YBF and some delaying checks around the schools early in the run.  This gave me time to check my mid-run trail marks before the hounds got to them.  Sure enough 3 of my marks had been kicked out, and, under the guise of going with the walkers, I was able to prevent the hounds accidentally running onto the BC by replacing the missing marks.  It was a generally sunny day.  Threatening showers in the morning, but not during the runs.  There were 3 walkers and 9 runners in the first group, and 5 runners in the second group.  All while within BC Athletics COVID-19 running group rules.  At one of the BFCs on Burnside Road SBC grabbed Just Shanthi before she stepped out into traffic, so at the BC we named her "Roadkill".   All-in-all the hounds enjoyed the trail, and the walkers and runners reached the BC at about the same time.

When I learned that there were going to be two start locations my first thoughts was, 'that's ambitious'.  I know it was to keep the groups small, and physically distant, but it would require more co-ordination.  The weather co-operated, hounds co-operated (those complaining about the delay were in the minority), and everything seemed fine, except Stoolie seemed agitated. Beaver had loss track of time, and had arrived late, and his car had the beer (or something like that), and he had the 3PM group, who were just heading off at about 3:25PM when I arrived.  Stoolie quickly ran off to set the BC, apologizing for the delay.  Stoolshad the keys to Beaver's car, and I think had agreed to hide the keys under or inside the bumper of the car - I think this was for a second BC (not sure).  Not long after he returned, the circle started, and everything from there on seemed to go great.  I always look forward to a Stoolie's woodlands trails.  This was very scenic, running along Craigflower Creek with good twists and turns, and places I hadn't been before.  I am not entirely sure what happened at the BC, but there seemed to be confusion, and maybe only half the beverage necessary.  A bunch of walker had been misplaced, but found - it's hard to get lost there as the road and the creek set good boundaries.  The main issue was that, in his hurry Stoolie had hidden Beaver's car key in the bumper of someone else's car, and that car was no where to be seen when Stoolie arrived.  Beaver did not have a spare set on him.  Modern car keys are expensive to replace.  Wet Taco, our RA, forgot to conduct religion, so no order came about, adding to the atmosphere of chaos.  On her way home from the run, Cock-a-Leeky, near the southern end of Highland Road, spotting something odd ahead of her, and being very smart, and always conscientious, and a bit curious, stopped and found Beaver's car keys.  They were a bit worse for wear, but I am told still worked.  I have good reason to believe Stoolie continues to hide keys under vehicle bumpers (manly his own), but now takes care to put them under the correct bumper in a predictably place - according to some mischievous hounds.  At some point the RA should honoured Cock-a-Leeky for finding those keys, and the hares for the interesting events - not just any old hash!

There were two COVID-19 groups for this wonderful warm days run with 7 hashers registered in each group.  I was in the 4PM group (I have photos from the 3PM group and waiting on one or two from the 4PM), not much haze left from the earlier California fire smoke.  That smoke had turned me away from attending the previous days Dark Side run set by Speedy Whorezalles, of which Speed complained that hasher were too critical of his trail, so that their next Speedy trail would be a long one - fair enough.  SBC's trail was clever, but for most of the run I was doing a good job of guessing  where the trail would go, only to be surprised by were the BC ended up. That was on a nice sunny rocky knoll above Camosun College Interurban Campus, not very far from the parking lot we had started from.  The run started off relatively exuberant, for hashers.  After a strategically placed HH 3/4 way along, following a long stretch that took hounds across Interurban Road, progress became a lazy late summer jog, stroll, black berry munching wander along idyllic country lanes.  Well at least for the second group.  Since there was no one else to come after us, we could be a bit less rushed.

Boomerang/Jonners' 80^th/50^th Birthday HashBoomerang/Jonners' 80^th/50^th Birthday Hash  I have to say this trail was well planned, and certainly had Jonners' touch.  It was also a fine, sunny, late summer day.  My only disappointment was, despite planning and setting such a clever trail, especially  around Uvic, they couldn't plan a day that they could both be present at their own birthdays runs.   We got to punish Boomerang for his advance endurance (his birthday), but we will have to reserve the right to roast Jonners next time he comes out.   The 3PM and 4PM rabble together had 26 participants with 7 walkers, and a nice balance of runners in each group.  We had a backslider in the person of Full Server, and she made her fiend Just Ly come.  I have a photo of Full Service at the 2014 12 Stops of Christmas - not publish on account of the Deep Shit still has photo for me -, and she was at the Special Pirate Hash that same month, but we have no record of her coming out until now.  The hares were also honoured with a visit of both Fruit Loops and Space Case from Vancouver HHH - who last visited in January 2017 for run 690. One of the funnier (to me) tales from the trail in the 3PM group was our discovery of a sign post right at a check with a campus map showing the only path we had not checked out, only to discovering Stoolie on the other side calling 'on on', frustrated that we couldn't hear him through all that steel and concrete.  There was an echo of their last birthday hash (run 653) with another bottle of Whyte & Makay at a Finnerty Cove lookout stop hosted by Premature Evacuation.  I have some few photos, but none yet of Boomerang.  Given it was his birthday run I hope someone thought to take his picture .  I will wait patiently for more photos.

The 22^ndAnnual Red Dress Run was also a wedding run for Blue Balls and Lovely Lady Bush.  Maybe now 'Blue and Lovely Lady-Bush-Balls' ?  It couldn't have been a better day, sunny and a perfect temperature.  For the occasion our brilliant Hash Haberdashers created a wonderful VH3 logoed face masks - hand or machine wash, hang to dry, as they will survive a dryer a limited number of times. The run had 24 hashers, split into 2 groups, each with a group of walkers.  Where the first group successfully found a pre-BC drink stop, and then powered on into the BC, the second group was challenge by the trail.   Physical distancing was ensured as the second group got lost  on the way to the drink stop.  They used technology on trail - once a chargeable offence -, and called for help.   Shigella auto-hashed - once a chargeable offence - to bring the fist beverage stop to the BC, and putting the second pack back on trail.  I was in the fist pack, and shamefully complained about too many arrows, because it put the red dress FRB out on their own, drawing strange looks from the neighbours. Later I realized the benefit of such was it speed me to the perfectly located BC.  There Premature Evacuation conducted a great hash wedding, twice, one for each group . So the married couple got married three time - we hope three's the charm.  This year's accumulated  donation of $230 went to HeadWay, the Victoria Epilepsy and Parkinson’s Centre. The only photos I have of the hares came from last year's Red Dress run photos. If I get photo I will post them, but so far I have none.  No write-up, even though it was the Scribes wedding!  Just Tess got named "Oh My Nipples", and Just Heather got named "Prosucker" . 

Building on the happy interface of Dikkus' run with Whoremoan's place the hare raise's lack of hare was solved, and this run became a pool party event.  With hashers evenly space around the pool, religion could be done with some physical distancing.  The run was fairly long, and the trail marks devious.  Actually I understand  the hare had to make a marking correction between groups.  There were only 2 groups on this run, but even with the  normal separation of an entire hour, some runners were out on the trail for a long time.  One spot on trail provided an opportunity for hashers to take a dip in the sea, but I doubt anyone did. If so they would have been out there even longer.  The 3PM group swept up a lost Wet Taco who had missed the previous dog hash set in the same area, and stated that he must have been following that event's marks (though over a weeks old).  I think he was a victim of the hares deviousness.  While the 3PM run found Wet Taco, it lost Stoolie Andrews.  It wasn't until religion had ended, that someone notice "where's the Stools", but just before a search party was about to be organized,  as if summoned like a genie, he appeared (maybe we mentioned his name 3 times or something).  He had departed from the pack to 'take a stoolie' in some secluded place, then got delayed doing the rest of the trail on his own.  The hare got down-downed twice into the pool off his slide, beer in hand.  Nothing like a little pool water in your beer!  Stuffer was there, but left for work, and SHIT graced us with his presence near the end.

This was the first run in Gordon Head since the 12 Stops of Christmas, and the first since COVID-19 that had a BC out side of someone's back yard.    It was a nice warm day, and the trail was 'so not predictable' - or we predicted wrongly that the BC might be at Dikkus' place.  I think the hare needed the BC closer to the start so that he could send-off each batch of runners from the start, with time to shortcut to the BC, because it was just him - no helper hare.  A baker's dozen turned up. all split between 2PM and 3PM - Slippery Dick wanted to be the sole 4PM runner, but decided  better, and joined the 3PM group. We even had an appearance of the illusive Hymen Manuever, stating he dragged along Cinderella.  Hymen was last seen ... almost never - our participation spreadsheet starts at run 651 (August 1, 2015) with nothing recorded for him until now, but we had 2 marked down for pre-record keeping appearances.  Cinderella comes out when he can, but is the other extreme of having been hashing countless times since 1999 (or before).  Dikkus even pre-dates Cinderella, but that's another storey.  Some runners stopped for a beer at Beaver Fevers place.  At Whoremoan hashers were offered a beer, and a dip in his pool, but Slippery Dick, not knowing it was Whoremoan's place, ran right by, and the other runners thought it best to catch up to him.  We did however get a venue for our next run.

The Blow a Dubble Bubble Run had as many people registered to blow Dubble Bulle gum bubbles for a beer as the Gin and Tonic run had hashers wanting a G & T two weeks earlier.  I suspect that the beginning of base ball season might have had something to do with if, as Dubble Bubble is the official gum of Major League Baseball.  There were 26 runners/walkers/chewers at this event.  They were the hashers of summer, broken into 3 groups.  At the start each runner was given a single piece of gum to chew  blow bubbles with while on a run.  Each was told he or she had to blow a bubble at the BC to receive a beverage, though I don't think that was enforced.  The trail lead hashers up to the top of the Summit Park reservoir and back to the Hares font yard for the BC.  At one point I knew I was on trail by the tell-tail pink wad of gum stuck to the pavement ahead of me.  Despite the reasonably well marked trail, at the west side of the almost empty reservoir, home to a few tranquil gulls, as VP had to be treated as a HH while half the pack got un-lost. 

The Annual Gin and Tonic, Spring Hot Dog Run
This years Gin and Tonic Run happened a bit by chance (see my comment on run 777), and didn't include the normal wonderful food that we had in past years (see G&T run 752).  I think to make up for this it was a more complicated run, and a less complicated food event - no broken crockery this year! The hares (bless them), made hounds work for their gin and tonics with a nice run that had a true-trail distance of just over 7 kilometers.  That means,  with false trails, and smaller packs (a COVID-9 10 or less)  the FRB ran at least 8KM, or more.   Not that anyone complained - once they got their G&T.  I am still looking for photos that haven't been sources from Facebook - a too reduced in quality to process yet again. 

Being the '777' run you couldn't help think of the Boeing 777 Jumbo Jet.  I couldn't help but call this the Jumbo run, and I wonder now if that was why it was so long.  The start originally was going to be at the top of Mount Tolmie, but a few days before the start that idea changed, and the hares decided that the hounds should climb the mountain.  It was a nice sunny day - good thing too.  I was second to last to start late afternoon on Saturday, and after me was Slippery Dick.  After a couple clever check-backs the trail crossed Richmond at Pearl Street to a path leading up the mountain.  Not far up the path the flour marks ended.  I gather that they had been there at some point in the past.  I followed the unmarked trail to the top. There the trail had to cross Mayfair Drive, which splits the park in two.  I started to slowly jog down the north side of the hill, on the other side of the drive, looking for flour, starting from the crowded view point - there were a lot of people about enjoying the sun and view.  I found flour midway down.  Followed it back to the top, figuring I might be going the wrong way, but curious as to where I was suppose to cross over Mayfair.  At the reservoir I found lots of people, and gave up looking for the true trail.  Back on trail I lost flour at the Henderson Gold Course chip path, but found it again on Henderson Road headed in the direction of Pussy Whipped Blue Buck and Testicular home.  It seemed already to have been a long run, and that would have been a good place for a BC.  Turns out half-way there there was a back-check that had me finding a muddy trail into Mystic Vale.  There I serendipitously came upon Testicular walking Fergus, their hound that they got middle of last November.  That gave me the chance to convince her to set their Annual Gin and Tonic run, before they got to busy with other summer plans.  After that it was on in to the BC.  It was a long run.  Slipper Dick never showed up at the BC.  He had his family in tow, and getting to the top of Mount Tomlie they never found the flour trail on the other side of the drive, got discouraged, and gave up.  I suspect the trail would have been perfect for a pack of hounds, but it was a nice workout for a solo hasher.

The 3^rd VH3 run-with-your-COVID19-bubble-folks event, or better-than-a-lonely-wolf run.  Tooloose was excited to set her first run out in the wilds of suburban Gordon Head, and 16 hashers responded. They booking into 10 start times at 3, 4, 5, 6, 6:30, 7PM on Friday, and then on Saturday at 2, 3, 3:30, and 4:30PM.   The Hash paparazzi came out on Saturday;  Sexy Lexi, Hard Hooker, Just Rosemarie, Just Tom booked at 3:30PM.  I ran at the near traditional time of 3PM - wanting 3:30PM but it had already been booked.  Even with the 30 minute to 1 hour start separation there was enough variance in time and speed to allow for some overlapping of groups.  With appropriate physically distancing some enjoyable visiting could happen between hashers in the adjoining group.  I got to visit with 'The Slow Beams'; the not-often-seen-out-these-days Slow Cooker, and the almost as rarely seen High Beams.  They were booked at 2PM, but I easily caught up with them at the BC.  Sister slow told me she often works on Saturdays, but had the day off, so she could accompany High Beams, wanting a bit of walking exercise following flour to beer (FFtoB).  Tooloose's trail was very well marked.  No one got loss.  It was partly clouding with a slight threat of a shower.  No one got run over.  At the BC we received an update from the Sexi Lexi group that they were running late, and had arrived at the school at about 4PM.  I missed them by 30 minutes, but arrived back at the start just in time to crossed paths with Boomerang and Hooter Shooter who's started was 4:30PM.  A very enjoyable afternoon.

When I receive from the hares the start location it seemed oddly emphatic that the run 'start pin' on the map be at the 'Gonzales Rd entrance to the Park'.  My start time was 3:30PM, but  I decided to run to the run.  I know that seems redundant, but I only live 1 ½ KM from the start.  I was 10 minutes late, but I could catch up.  A couple of short blocks from the start I came across a check at Gonzales and Richmond Avenue, and a short distance away towards the park a VP of a large brightly painted rooster with a mask on it - a 'COVID-19 Chicken'!  It is on my normal running root, so seen it before.  No need to go to the park; they headed this way - either right or left along Richmond.  I tightened my shoe strings, and headed out from the first check.  If I had gone for a closer look of the chicken, I would have seen an arrow pointing me away from the direction of the check, up a dead end road to the trail on-in to the BC less than a KM away.  Going the wrong way (confident that I had saved myself some time) I found one clever back-check on Fairfield Road.  There I was stymied.  A check and back-check combination that didn't make sense.  At which point I encountered Yeast Infection, O’Candida (the 2PM start), with  Sexy Lexi, Hard Hooker, and Puppy Porn (the 2:30 start).  It was O’Candida who first realized I was going the wrong way - 'oh you have to yet go around all that way', pointing towards Gonzales Hill.  I gave them a couple hints were to go, and headed back toward the park to start over.  It was a sunny day, no showers, and perfect running temperature.  The hares had the trail loop down through to the Cougar Cutoff pedestrian trail between Falkland Rd., and Mountjoy Ave., then up to the top of the hill, and back down onto Beach Drive with some meanders in Fairfield back to were I met the earlier runners on Fairfield at Richmond.  At beach I passed Boomerang and Hooter Shooter (the 3PM'ers), who I notice were lost behind me, and run a bit with them.  Then I left them - not far from the chicken - to follow the trail up to and through Glenlyon Norfolk School,  getting to the BC at the hares home just as the 2PM and 2:30 PM hasher were leaving.  Boomer and Hooter eventually called the hares from there cell phone to to get direction - trail marks in the last 3 blocks to the BC were a bit difficult to find.  A trail run backward might not make sense, but in the worse case you get to the start without having encountering the BC.

It seemed to me that run 774 was not going to happen.  It kept getting postponed due to COVID-19.  Finally the Dark Side of the Moon's Junta (or just Preemie) did their run 312.  Obviously smarter than the VH3, he figured out how to do a 'COVID-19 run', safely, with a traditional flour trail.  In this way there are no circles, or religion in the normal way.  The hares have to be reminded to keep it simple and short.  The run is done with 1 or 2 people who live together, and who would do the trail on their own at a booked time.  Of course that requires a booking process, recording the booking, the publication of all bookings, etc.  All easy stuff, right?   It took hours to setup.  This VH3 run was SBC's version of the DS 312 run.  I was the last person booked to run it.  I should have looked at the weather forecast, because in short order from the start of my run it had begun to raining.  Near the end, at some crucial places, there were no remaining flour marks. I had to make a number of shrewd guesses as to where SBC would have set her trail.  Finally, at about 3 blocks from the BC (I knew where it was) I lost all trail marks, and just short-cutted to the end.  Wet Taco hosted the BC, and was able to supply me a warm dry jacket, and he let me have my beer inside - I was the last runner. Religion was done by Zoom, which Blue Ball set-up for the Dark Side and VH3.  Wet Taco snapped some shots of those who arrived at the BC.

This was the second Lone Wolf Run, and since April was National Poetry Month,  as part of this hash event hashers were asked to submit a poem to our evil Facebook group, and maybe Hash Scribe (Blue Balls) could harvest the poems from there.  The Webmeister then could create a COVID-19 April Hash Poetry page.  I never saw any poems, so it seems that hasher were not inspired enough.  This run I tried to reinvent the trail from the April 18^th 2009 run 482, Floppy Snatch & Itchy Buns' Oak Bay Exploration Run.  There was no map available for this run, so I sleuthed out a likely path based on the backgrounds in photos of hashers on that run.  The map page under the thumbnail has links to the photos which provided clues as to where the trail went.  I scouted the trail, made a map, and linked the map to the photo at about where they likely were taken in 2009.  I figured if I were to put in all that work, hounds would reward use  with a few poems.  I didn't see any poems.

After having postponed the March  21^st run, our Grand Mattress suggested that we needed something to 'keep the hashing sprit alive', so we came up with the concept of a 'lone wolf' run.  The 'lone wolf run' term was used by a pulmonologist (lung doctor), who on CBC's The National, talking about what he does to keep fit, used the term to describe his runs, and that it was a safe way keep  physically distancing from others.  Instructions to hashers were to; look at the map, remember the map, see how lost you get trying to run it without the map, share your story afterwards, and reward yourself with a beer.

Valentine's Day Run
The theme of this run was red, pink, hearts, love notes, and lots of hugs. This you  can see in the group shot.  Given the amount of crepe paper ribbons being  used, and worn by the ever bubbly Peepee, it was a good thing it was a sunny March day, and not a rainy February 14th.  Better late than never for a pre-COVIDS 'hugs' run.  Ironically the BC was at the home of a person working for the BC's Emergency Preparedness folks, and when I arrive he was carrying into his home office a new office chair, and told me that he was setting up to work out of his home - he new what was about to come.  Not long after that the physically distancing ruled came in.  Working from home became the norm for those who could.  The VH3 Mismanagement stopped all runs.  Followed shortly  by the Dark Side of the Moon Junta.  The next  run 774 would postponed 3 times.  On a  happier note we named Just Cass "Tooloose" and Just Julianna "Overthehill".  At least hashers got some hugs in before all hugging was stopped by a little virus.

Gispert Memorial Day Run
The VH3 and Dark Side of the Moon have really only had a small handful of these runs, so it's not an annual event.  Not yet.  We need to have these occasional to shore-up our foundations. When we name someone and we say, "in the name of Gispert we name you ...", you might be a bit curious as to why a naming is done in the memory of Gispert  (in his name), particularly when none of us would have ever met him.  In a way we use  the memory of Gispert to reinforce our present and future.  Academics might call this part of theology or future-oriented memory, and that this is echoed in William Faulkner’s 1950 drama, "Requiem for a Nun" where is his often quoted line "The past is not dead, it is not even past."  They say we need to reinforce the future by reinforcing our memory of the past.  After a week of rain and drizzle the clouds parted, and we had fine and mild weather for this years memorial run, skillfully set by our RA.

The Annual Robby Burns Day Run and Dinner
I missed this run, but made it to the On Afters, which had a marvelous selection of food, including haggis, neaps, and tatties.  There are rumours that a Canadian rye whiskey, and not scotch, was served at some point on the run, but I am sure that our the Hash Scribe this year (Blue Balls) will clear that up in his much awaited exposé write-up.  I discovered that Kitty Licker has another nephew who's really good at bowing pipes.  I'll let our hash scribe give us more details on this.

I was recovering from the flu - one that was not in the flu shot that I had been given - so kept away from this run to spare the rabble.  What I can report is that the weather was mild, but a bit rainy. The trail happened to overlap with my evening walk.  I discovered marks that headed north down St Charles to Fort, then to Oak Bay, up over Terrace Ave., where there was a couple of strange stops (non-standard trail marks), then along Rockland.  It had to have headed down Gonzales - though not part of my evening walking route.  I headed along Rockland to Pemberton Rd., heading home, and at the corner of Pemberton and Angus Rd.  I came across a NBC (!) not more than a couple blocks from the start - I suspect the BC was probably at the start.  The on-in trail came up from Fort Street to Pemberton via Carberry Gardens.  It turns out that if I had gone to this run - I would have walked or run to it - I would have discovered where the BC was before I even got to its start.  Based on photos that I received in mid-July Just Nicky was named "Hardhooker" on this run.

The Annual New Years Day Run and Polar Bear Swim
Yet another mild and sunny New Years' Day run and Polar Bear swim.  It almost didn't happen.  The Hare was sick leading up to the event.  Just before  initiating a call for hares to set an alternate run, Muck emailed that he had come out of his 'coma', and can host the event.  He wasn't able to set a trail, but he could give out maps to the BC, and an additional treat stop.  With expensive repairs done to his hot tub, the polar bears had a hot tub to warm up in.  At the beginning of the run I was handed a map to the location of the treats stop, and BC, and someone told me to add in a couple false trails - Blue Balls (our missing scribe, and a purveyor of muddy and wet 'shiggy' trails) should be happy to know that I attempted to lead the pack through the wettest route I could to the map's BC.  The BC was moved en route when the hare couldn't get to it with his SUV and the cooler.  The walkers didn't follow the map, so they were late getting to the BC.  I wasn't able to stay for the polar bear splash, but from the photos it looks like it happened in the dark this year despite the early start.  It looks like everything turned out ok.  When Garry Glitter and I left the BC, map in hand, we were half a kilometer away when we only then notice that no one was following, but for those familiar with the area on-in was easy to figure out.  It made me wonder if this was an omen for the new year.