The first NAWW run of what some would argue is not the penultimate year of the millenium, started in Battery in the smallest ticket hall on the entire Subway. I'm no meteorologist (that being a maligned profession in my native England) but I am on safe ground in claiming it as the coldest Wednesday of the year so far - not withstanding it being the only Wednesday of the year so far. If I had to guess I'd say there was a wind-chill of zero. Sufce it say that even the MTA ticket clerk tucked up in his cozy booth begged us to close the door.

Our hare, Peter Trunfio, who thought we'd be content to chill out for while, appeared apologetically at 7:25 and assured us the length of the run was in no way related to the tardiness of his arrival. At this point a quiet figure who'd been standing to one side for half an hour revealed himself to us as a Swedish visitor on his way home from Interhash in Malaysia, whence he had departed in October. He hoped to be home the following week, though a simple mathematical projection would indicate that he might hit Sweden sometime in 2013, if he's lucky. most likely had a rude hashname but for the purposes of this article I'll call him "Sven".

The overlong exposure to Antarctic temperatures at the start had clearly stalled a few brains, and after a loop of Battery Park, passing the haunting semi-submerged sculpture honoring seamen torpedoed at sea, the pack suffered a massive observation failure at the second check.

In truth it was primarily the fault of the security firm assigned to protect the needy citizens of Battery Park City. Had the guard been at his post at the entrance to Robert Wagner Park, and had the gate been closed as is usual after sunset, the hare would not have been inveigled into taking the trail that way. Veteran downtowners such as Daves Long and Byron-Brown never even bothered to check it and as a result the pack scattered far and wide across lowest Manhattan none of us on trail.

After 10 minutes monitoring the traffic flow on West Street, Dave "Too" Long, "Sven" and myself headed pessimistically to the World Financial Centre, only to pick up the long lost trail. It was too exciting for Dave L. and he too disappeared (last one home, I seem to recall.)

With the reputation of the NAWWH3 resting solely on my not too broad shoulders I escorted our Swede around the rest of the trail, with the exception of another section where the aforementioned security outfit were defending their positions in overwhelming numbers. We never saw another soul until arriving in the appropriately named Antarctica. Nobody else found the trail, but the others did seem to have an inkling of where the On-Inn was to be, which suggests that they may have deliberately bailed out at check 2.

In the absence of Geoff and Alice, it fell to yours truly to offer eagerly grabbed down-downs to the sinners, whose number included three or four intentional late arrivals in civilian clothing. I won't name names for obvious reasons - one minor one being that I didn't take note of them at the time. Pete had flown in some Black Star ale from Montana and I didn't hear any complaints about that.