The beauty of knowing that you are doing a write-up about a trail where you know that the hares will be traveling with you far, far away when the write-up is distributed is that you can really skewer and abuse them without their knowledge. That said, Michele and John, the unofficial Joint Masters of the newly formed organization called Hashers Who Don't Hash, were our hares for this week, meaning that we were guaranteed a short and shitty trail with the assurance that the emphasis would be focused on the on-in.

Starting at 72nd and Broadway, or rather in front of O'Hurley's (the unofficial headquarters of Hashers Who Don't Hash), a rather motley crew of out-of-towners and old-timers arrived, having ditched the Giants' complete and total destruction of the Vikings for a jaunt.

As expected, the run was rather uneventful, innocuous and short. There wasn't much to speak of in terms of what happened on the trail, maybe one or two good checks and the trail went through Central Park, but the hares relied heavily and rather unfairly on checks. Having gotten to know how John's Inner Dog (as in Bollocks) ticks, I surmised that the checks were most likely an attempt to play the odds…if the hares set a two mile trail with 18 checks, then the pack wouldn't notice how short the trail was and they may even be hailed for their ingenuity for some of the "tougher" checks.

While I usually wouldn't appreciate that kind of dog poop, it didn't really matter since the alternative would have been no run at all, this being a Hashers Who Don't Hash run and all. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving at the on-in, I learned that I was the only committee member on hand who wasn't a hare and I would have to lead the crowd in down-downs - which meant that if I gave Michele and John too much hell, it might be construed as an abuse of power. (Luckily, the pen can be mightier than the beer.)

This being my virgin venture into leading the crew in down-downs, I must say that I have even more respect for our JM's Peter and Roy than ever. It's hard to spin a yarn about the trail and trail offenders week after week. And personally, I have a great ability to blank out completely during presentations in front of a group of any size. So, in an effort to speed along the blank-out process, I immediately chugged two pints of beer before the down-down proceedings and gave Dave Hardy the honor of prompting me along. The reviews weren't bad and I was later informed, down-downs went to: