Today I went for a two hour run, I got a bit lost and ended up being brought home in a pick up truck after being escorted out of probably the most expensive spa on the whole Island by security…
Yes indeed, another day, another adventure in Thailand. Today we met up with a group called ‘The Hash House Harriers’, which are a group of runners that once a week meet up and go for a 5KM run. About 30 people turned up and we got started about 4 O’clock in the afternoon. It was all uphill and it was all in the scorching 36 degree heat, so was far from an easy task to begin with.
Now you may ask what the route was… That is the thing… ‘The Hash House Harriers’ are serious about running, but at the same time they like to have a bit of fun and a bit of a drink. Therefore every week the trail is different and they mark it out in the morning using shredded paper, which when the guy announced ‘This is what you will be looking for’ had me laughing, because I thought he was joking… he was not. Also if you came to an ‘X’ it meant you could go left or right and if you didn’t see paper for 100 yards you had to come back and go the other way.
So, we got started running up this unbelievably steep hill in the boiling heat and after 5 minutes everyone was sweating as if they’d just come out of the shower! We went up more and more hills before after 15 minutes we were called ‘Off Paper’ and that meant we’d lost the paper… lets be honest… it is inevitable when you are in a forest following pieces of shredded paper. This happened about 10 times within the first hour, although throughout we kept on running up steep hills and long grass (this had me a little on edge as the crocodile farm guy said those king Cobras were found in the long forestry grass of Thailand!).
So that was after about an hour and then we got to a point where we were really lost and we hadn’t seen paper in about 15 minutes, so we all split up and eventually someone found paper and we were on our way running down to the beach “Last fucking time I let him do a trail, this happens every time” some Scottish guy told me. I just laughed, the whole Hash group were a real laugh, but it was weaved with politics on who should be leader, who should make trails, etc and when you add this to 36 degree heat and exhausted people tempers flair.
So now we were on the beach we ran until we got to about an hour and 15 minutes, then we got called ‘Off paper’. I was quite far ahead, because I had decided that this was probably the final stretch and I wanted to push myself as I’d missed training today for this run and trust me, I was really pushing myself! I ran back to help look and the Scottish guy said “Bugger it, just head along the beach, the finishing point is on the beach so we’ll get there eventually”. My first mistake was running on off paper, my second and for this I should have known better… was listening to a Scotsman! We were in pretty big trouble, we had run about 15 minute straight forwards and the ground was getting rockier and rockier up until now, when it was huge boulders.

I was feeling more like a mountaineer than a runner, when suddenly I looked back and saw everyone had stopped. I jogged back over to them and heard that everyone was pretty much fed up. ”Screw this” a rather large Canadian guy said “We’re gonna die in this heat”. Although that was a bit extreme, we were out of water, had been running about an hour and a half and were totally lost. We decided to go up through a bunch of houses, little did we know it was a very well known posh spar. We were in running rags and covered in sweat… a German, a Canadian, an Aussie, a Brit and a Scotsman. Not a single one of us knew Thai, and I think the three women working in the spar thought we were pirates… they did after all call security who looked very pissed off and would not let us leave without escorting us off the property.
Once we were out of the spar and back on the road we decided to jog, but it really was futile. We were lost, everyone kept saying “I recognise this” but it was crap, because we were miles away from where we should be. After being in the sun for an hour and 45 minutes everyone was done, me and the Scottish guy said we’d keep running but after being told that it was at least 30 minute to 45 minutes until we got back to the camp and neither of us knew which way we decided it was a lost cause and jumped in the back of a pick up truck.
”I’m fed up of this” said one of the guys “This happens all the time” said one of the women. They were plotting a real ass kicking of the guy who made the trail and I started to think the talk here must be similar to that of a military vehicle heading off to war. When we did get back to ‘base camp’ everyone seemed to have calmed down and that. We were missing one person though… Craig… the person I am staying with… The story went that Craig had decided not to head up through the spar but to continue along the rocky beach and follow the coast line.
Kath wasn’t too worried as Craig was a pretty physical guy, he had always done exercise and army training, etc, etc. However I think after 30 minutes and still no sign of him everyone breathed a sigh of relief when we saw him turn up also in a pick up. Craig got out and his legs were in pretty bad shape… covered in huge cuts and bruises. It turns out that he had gotten so far along the coast that the rocks had began to turn into cliffs and he had got stuck and had to climb up the hill / mountain like terrain, through a ton of thorns and eventually made it to a villa that was empty. He managed to get through the villa and back onto the road, but he was pretty torn up, bruised and totally lost…
Once Craig was back and everyone was re-united we had a ‘circle’, where basically the losers, disasters, cheats, etc had to down a bottle of alcohol. Craig of course ended up with the crash helmet!!! It was quite funny, because where as the running was quite serious, now they began to rip into each other and take the piss out of each other just like drinking buddies at the pub.
The Canadian guy asked me after if I ran for my school or a club, I laughed and told him I left school a long time ago (I’m 21 but still get charged under 18 rate on buses!!!). He said I should look into competitive running, which was a nice compliment, but I find it too hard to do as well as Muay Thai. I have never run longer than 40 minutes though so really surprised me. My fitness was a lot higher than I thought it was anyway.
After the run we had an amazing meal of noodles, chicken, rice, masiman curry and I also had a lemon shake to replace my sugar and salt levels from the run. Totally exhausted we all headed home about 7 O’clock and this morning I woke up with probably the most painful legs I have had since I’ve been in Thailand and I’ve had a few nasty bruises from Muay Thai I can tell you that much!