12 June 2008
89. Death March
Black Sheep H3 - 8 March 08
My angel and devil were talking. The devil hangs out on my right shoulder. No, the other right. There you go. The devil chimed in first, as usual:
"Loooooost... go to Blaaack Sheeeeeep. All the Cool Kids are going. Meh."
(My devil says Meh a lot. Some evil verbal tic.)
"Cool Kids? It's supposed to get up to 97 degrees today. That's not COOL. The only people who will be there are the Hardcore Kids."
"But everyone who does Black Sheep is a Cool Kid, hardcore or not. And you know Colonel Clit; he doesn’t do assfault. You puritan tard. Meh. L&F, go. You can doooo iiiiit."
I had to interrupt at this point. They're both so annoying. "Shut up. Both of you. Angel, pack my dry bag. Devil, prepare the chariot. We're going."
Let me fill you in on the heat. The average temperature for March 8 in Roswell, GA is 83 degrees. The record was 94. Notice I said WAS. The temperature for BSH3 #468? Yeah, the angel was right. 97 degrees.
The start was in front of the DSW at Northpoint Mall. A stone’s throw from GA 400. The hares were Colonel Clit and Little Willy. Maybe a dozen hounds and a large number of bimbos gathered at the start trying to figure out what the hares were going to do. A majority of the pack had no doubt… we were going to be subterranean.
Shiggy was so close we smelled it, but it was too far away to use as a toilet. So I had to take a leak in a disturbingly clean and enclosed Verizon trash area. I think I heard the pee sizzling as it hit the pavement.
Fuck, it was hot. And the heat had quite a few hounds deciding they would bimbo. Sani blessed the hares with an abundance of beer at 2:10 and the pack gave chase five minutes later.
We trotted to the back of the mall and immediately found a check. Into a tunnel. It was so much cooler down there, and there were even some light sticks to confirm we weren’t going to wrong way. We made a sharp left turn into a connecting tunnel, continually noticing the manholes with bright light streaming in from the sun directly overhead. A count-back forced us all the way back to the check, and gave the evil hares the HEAD start they had planned for.
True Trail was up a dryish creek bed and through another tunnel under 400. We crossed Westside Parkway and hit a dirt road leading to a construction site and the toughest check of the day. I immediately went straight, running a quarter mile to the far edge of the only piece of ASSfault in the area. No luck, so back I went. We would all try larger and larger circles away from the check, and some of us were getting flummoxed due to the lack of flour and the hot sun frying our brains. We were longing to be back under the canopy. Someone finally picked up trail just past the ASSfault, between 500 and 600 yards away from the check. This was the main reason the hares’ five-mile trail turned into a six-mile trail for many of us, and the oppressive heat in this treeless piece of hell was what jump-started our mental unraveling.
Another problem that almost erased our will to live was an obvious change in hares; at some point we started struggling to find marks. We found out later that most of us had been split into three sub-packs for most of the afternoon, and having three or four people able to spread out to find T.P. was a requirement for continuing our timely forward mobility.
The next two miles had us on a partially overgrown access road and a sewer easement, r*nning in a long semi-circular piece of shiggy separating office complexes. Threading the needle. The highlight here: all the poison ivy. I’ve seen taller batches and thicker batches, but I’ve never seen such a wide expanse with so much PI growing everywhere. I shrugged off that poisonous feeling, knowing that rubbing alcohol has always kept me from getting stricken.
The remainder of trail followed Foe Killer Creek and Big Creek. For a mile and a half, we ran beside the water, inside the water, across the water, or trudged through the muddy or swampy messes nearby. The muddy area was a gorgeous swampy-looking expanse that contained the usual deadfall and sparse trees, but with a carpet of bright greenery at our feet instead of water. The actual skanky liquid came later, and it was here that visiting hasher Alcoholiday from Las Vegas let out a tortured yell. We turned around to find that a hidden tree branch had stabbed him in the upper thigh. From the lack of blood, we determined that he would live, so we trudged on. We needed beer.
The marks suddenly stopped south of Mansell Road, in a thin strip of hamsterland between the creek and 400. We looked for maybe 10 minutes and gave up; busting through a set of briars to gather at the nearby bridge under 400. I still had some energy left, but I was unwilling to look for any more marks. I plopped my happy ass down and called the hares. Turns out a hound had told Little Willy to go re-mark this last bit, so he was out re-marking somewhere, but another hound who just came in was able to give us d'erections: Cross the creek under 400 and head north along a power cut. The end was under the shade of the only clump of trees in the area, near the end of Beaver Creek Road.
I looked around at everyone and realized that my brain was simply not functioning. My Camelback was dry, and for the first time ever, so was my doo-rag. Holy shit, was I that dehydrated? I filled my mug with wonderfully cold beer and drained it, then quickly refilled the mug and drained it again. Chugging three Diet Cokes gave me enough energy to get changed.
A male/female pair of first-timers (I’m horrible with nerd names) came in a few minutes after me, and were in amazingly good spirits considering what we all just went through. They definitely earned their props today, along with everyone else. The FRB’s came in at 2 1/2 hours; DLF’s were 10 minutes shy of three hours.
There was much rejoicing when Sani announced were were all in. Circle started soon after, and we all recapped our long afternoon. As I looked around at all of us, I realized something amazing: Just the day before, a few of us had gone to the Virginia-Highland Summerfest and saw medics wheeling people away who succumbed to the heat just walking from booth to booth. And here we were, doing this much for this long. So thanks to the hares for letting us realize just how hardcore we all are. Definitely another memorable Black Sheep.
Epilogue: I found out later that the trail was supposed to be a mile shorter. Little Willy apparently got turned around in the swamps and added a mile, then ran out of TP. That explains it.
May the Hash Get a Piece… hopefully in an air-conditioned room.
My angel and devil were talking. The devil hangs out on my right shoulder. No, the other right. There you go. The devil chimed in first, as usual:
"Loooooost... go to Blaaack Sheeeeeep. All the Cool Kids are going. Meh."
(My devil says Meh a lot. Some evil verbal tic.)
"Cool Kids? It's supposed to get up to 97 degrees today. That's not COOL. The only people who will be there are the Hardcore Kids."
"But everyone who does Black Sheep is a Cool Kid, hardcore or not. And you know Colonel Clit; he doesn’t do assfault. You puritan tard. Meh. L&F, go. You can doooo iiiiit."
I had to interrupt at this point. They're both so annoying. "Shut up. Both of you. Angel, pack my dry bag. Devil, prepare the chariot. We're going."
Let me fill you in on the heat. The average temperature for March 8 in Roswell, GA is 83 degrees. The record was 94. Notice I said WAS. The temperature for BSH3 #468? Yeah, the angel was right. 97 degrees.
The start was in front of the DSW at Northpoint Mall. A stone’s throw from GA 400. The hares were Colonel Clit and Little Willy. Maybe a dozen hounds and a large number of bimbos gathered at the start trying to figure out what the hares were going to do. A majority of the pack had no doubt… we were going to be subterranean.
Shiggy was so close we smelled it, but it was too far away to use as a toilet. So I had to take a leak in a disturbingly clean and enclosed Verizon trash area. I think I heard the pee sizzling as it hit the pavement.
Fuck, it was hot. And the heat had quite a few hounds deciding they would bimbo. Sani blessed the hares with an abundance of beer at 2:10 and the pack gave chase five minutes later.
We trotted to the back of the mall and immediately found a check. Into a tunnel. It was so much cooler down there, and there were even some light sticks to confirm we weren’t going to wrong way. We made a sharp left turn into a connecting tunnel, continually noticing the manholes with bright light streaming in from the sun directly overhead. A count-back forced us all the way back to the check, and gave the evil hares the HEAD start they had planned for.
True Trail was up a dryish creek bed and through another tunnel under 400. We crossed Westside Parkway and hit a dirt road leading to a construction site and the toughest check of the day. I immediately went straight, running a quarter mile to the far edge of the only piece of ASSfault in the area. No luck, so back I went. We would all try larger and larger circles away from the check, and some of us were getting flummoxed due to the lack of flour and the hot sun frying our brains. We were longing to be back under the canopy. Someone finally picked up trail just past the ASSfault, between 500 and 600 yards away from the check. This was the main reason the hares’ five-mile trail turned into a six-mile trail for many of us, and the oppressive heat in this treeless piece of hell was what jump-started our mental unraveling.
Another problem that almost erased our will to live was an obvious change in hares; at some point we started struggling to find marks. We found out later that most of us had been split into three sub-packs for most of the afternoon, and having three or four people able to spread out to find T.P. was a requirement for continuing our timely forward mobility.
The next two miles had us on a partially overgrown access road and a sewer easement, r*nning in a long semi-circular piece of shiggy separating office complexes. Threading the needle. The highlight here: all the poison ivy. I’ve seen taller batches and thicker batches, but I’ve never seen such a wide expanse with so much PI growing everywhere. I shrugged off that poisonous feeling, knowing that rubbing alcohol has always kept me from getting stricken.
The remainder of trail followed Foe Killer Creek and Big Creek. For a mile and a half, we ran beside the water, inside the water, across the water, or trudged through the muddy or swampy messes nearby. The muddy area was a gorgeous swampy-looking expanse that contained the usual deadfall and sparse trees, but with a carpet of bright greenery at our feet instead of water. The actual skanky liquid came later, and it was here that visiting hasher Alcoholiday from Las Vegas let out a tortured yell. We turned around to find that a hidden tree branch had stabbed him in the upper thigh. From the lack of blood, we determined that he would live, so we trudged on. We needed beer.
The marks suddenly stopped south of Mansell Road, in a thin strip of hamsterland between the creek and 400. We looked for maybe 10 minutes and gave up; busting through a set of briars to gather at the nearby bridge under 400. I still had some energy left, but I was unwilling to look for any more marks. I plopped my happy ass down and called the hares. Turns out a hound had told Little Willy to go re-mark this last bit, so he was out re-marking somewhere, but another hound who just came in was able to give us d'erections: Cross the creek under 400 and head north along a power cut. The end was under the shade of the only clump of trees in the area, near the end of Beaver Creek Road.
I looked around at everyone and realized that my brain was simply not functioning. My Camelback was dry, and for the first time ever, so was my doo-rag. Holy shit, was I that dehydrated? I filled my mug with wonderfully cold beer and drained it, then quickly refilled the mug and drained it again. Chugging three Diet Cokes gave me enough energy to get changed.
A male/female pair of first-timers (I’m horrible with nerd names) came in a few minutes after me, and were in amazingly good spirits considering what we all just went through. They definitely earned their props today, along with everyone else. The FRB’s came in at 2 1/2 hours; DLF’s were 10 minutes shy of three hours.
There was much rejoicing when Sani announced were were all in. Circle started soon after, and we all recapped our long afternoon. As I looked around at all of us, I realized something amazing: Just the day before, a few of us had gone to the Virginia-Highland Summerfest and saw medics wheeling people away who succumbed to the heat just walking from booth to booth. And here we were, doing this much for this long. So thanks to the hares for letting us realize just how hardcore we all are. Definitely another memorable Black Sheep.
Epilogue: I found out later that the trail was supposed to be a mile shorter. Little Willy apparently got turned around in the swamps and added a mile, then ran out of TP. That explains it.
May the Hash Get a Piece… hopefully in an air-conditioned room.
# posted by L&F @ 10:12 PM 
