Maokong Madness

Yesterday, I was a proud participant of a real humdinger of a Hash in Maokong, right near the Taipei Zoo. The hash was supposed to have a "bonus" race at the beginning from an MRT stop up to the beginning of the hash itself. The organizers promised cash prizes as well as other great gifts for the participants. They promised also that it would start at 1 PM sharp and of course I arrived late, as I often do. But at 1:01, when I did arrive, the lone organizer there told me I was the first one. Then a few minutes later, another guy showed up the race was born. However, no one else after dared to show their face so it was a head to head battle between me and Robert from Germany. His hash name is escaping me right now, but it's really inappropriate so use your imagination. Anyway, we started the "race" off together but a very steep staircase we had to climb for what felt like about 5 minutes proved difficult for my opponent so I took the lead from there. I was able to complete this race in 35 minutes, one minute faster than the guy who had set the course up. Anyway, this race did have a pretty fun route. It ran along a river for the first 10 minutes or so, then ascended a massive staircase, before getting to a stone trail that wound through the jungle until reaching the beginning of the hash. We hung out there before the run began roughly 90 minutes later.

The run started late because two of the hares had gone on their scooter to fix part of the race course and proceeded to crash into a car during this. The owner of the car happened to be a lawyer, so I'm sure they'll be paying for ALL of the damages. Anyway, this delayed the run for like 15 or 20 minutes. Then the madness began. The run was hared by 3 guys who had never hared before. They had co-hared previously with an expert but never by themselves, so that's where things got iffy. The first half of the run went straight through the jungle. The trail was completely bushwacked. Most of the runs we do utilize existing trails and roads but this one, not the case. But yeah, we went through some very cool terrain and did plenty of river tracing. It felt like dusk the whole time we were in the jungle because it was that thick that not much light got in. At the second to last check, things got interesting. About 15 or 20 hashers gathered on a ridge after finding a check, but after searching desperately for 15 or 20 minutes, no one could find the next part of the trail anywhere. This search involved everyone running back and forth on the same trail, but going a little farther at each end each time. I ended up following a guy who said he knew how to get back without flour marking the way. After running about a half mile from the check, we found the next flour marking. In other words, the mark that was supposed to be around 100 meters from the check ended up being 800 meters away, explaining why no one found it. Then, we followed this way down before somehow joining the beginning of the hash again and we started re-tracing our steps. After making a U-turn and cursing, we made our way back to the beginning. The run in all was over 90 minutes long.

It was an amazing experience though. Although the organization and marking could've been better, it was a great day overall. The weather was perfect and it was great to be so secluded in the jungle. There were about 90 people who showed up to the run. Oh, I almost forgot. During Down-Downs, the hares brought up me and Robert to collect our awards for the "race" we did at the beginning. They gave me $1000 NT which was nice, as well as a pretty cool photo of a big bridge in Danshui. Robert, being the biggest loser as the hares so kindly put it, gave him a bottle of vodka to ease his sorrows. We also got certificates proving our participation in this massive race.