Saturday was Hai Poo Gai’s “hangover friendly” Mammarial Day weekend hash. I am assuming that by “hangover friendly” he meant that it was very helpful to the hangover in pursuing its insidious work. It was the third hash in a row and the night before had been the Hogan’s Beer Mile, so the hangover had much to work with. And it was not a short trail; it was about 10 k.

We met at Chalkers Pub on Marlee a bit south of Glencairn subway station. The bar had a quite lovely second-floor patio we convened at, but the main feature was about 50 pool tables inside. Despite this, Humpday confessed that this was the first time he’d made the connection to pool in the name of the bar. We had a trifecta of Oakville visitors in Two Jugs, Oral Sox and Black Widow, and the weather was finally warm enough to bring Wet ‘N Dirty into her chrysalis stage.

We started off crossing the Allen Road, and most of the pack then thought they should run along the Beltline, but in fact the wily hare had the trail go south through Forest Hill and across Eglinton. The pack was pretty well split up by this point, with Two Jugs deciding to take trail advice from Shadow (which explained their disappearance for the next interval) and the FRBs consisting of the unlikely combination of Dead End, Wet ‘N Dirty and Shampoo.

Even more bizarrely, it was Shampoo who first arrived at the mysterious First Aid Check. The crouched huddled figure sitting on the steps under the bridge over the Cedarvale Ravine proved to be not a troll but Helen Keller, guarding the life-restoring first aid kit. It was Hai Poo’s secret recipe of iced tea, various citrus infusions and enough vodka to keep the old liver twitching nervously. And cilantro, you can’t forget the cilantro, according to Hai Poo.

The next stage of the trail went through the ravine past Bathurst and then climbed the slope and snuck through the property of an apartment complex (luckily the gate in the fence was unlocked). Crossing over Bathurst, the route veered back into Cedarvale Ravine about half a kilometre northwest from where we’d gone in. This was where Two Jugs was found running in all directions, after his successful short cut with Shadow. Shadow, seeking to trump his own advice, was still MIA.

A bit more running through the woods revealed the beer check, or where the beer check would be if the hare was actually there with the beer. But the stragglers were still showing up for a good 15 or 20 minutes after Hai Poo Gai brought the life-restoring elixir, the last to appear Shadow, just in time to snag the final beer.

Then the slow trudge back to Chalkers. I don’t even remember who filled in as GM – I was too busy making friends with my hangover.