Hashing! On On!

With my running feeling stalled, and me feeling a serious lack of motivation, and the ridiculous 20+mph winds driving me crazy after work every day, I was in need of something different. 

Thursday night, the sister running store to the one where I work was hosting its first Hash Run.   Hash House Harriers can be found all over the world.  You can read about them here.  Hashers are often referred to as drinkers with a running problem. Basically, this is a run that caters to runners of any level -- a "hare" sets a course using flour that the "harriers" try to follow and figure out.  There are false trails and checkpoints and beer stops and silly songs, and after you've done it a while, you may be lucky enough to get your hashing name...  which is often as silly and vulgar as the songs that are sung.  There is beer at the end, and sometimes people cut the course just to get to the beer quicker. 

When I arrived at the store, we were given an intro to hashing by D.C.'s Grandmaster inside, and then we circled up outside to get started.  He demonstrated (in chalk) what the flour trail might look like and how to follow it:

It was super cold outside and the grandmaster realized we needed a warm-up before we started running, so we were introduced to our first song.  It was silly, with hand gestures and leg movements, and soon the nervous ice was broken, we were all laughing, and we were ready to start finding and following our trail.  Off we went!

It was dark, and we had to rely on our flashlights and each other to find the flour markings on the road, and it was a blast!   We yelled directions to our fellow harriers (that's the on on! above).  We slowed at times to let slower runners catch up.  The trail wound us through town, into a neighborhood, and eventually to a park where we came upon our mid-run beer stop.  One harrier was called into the circle (they'll do this for various reasons -- you're a newbie, you're from out of town, it's your birthday, etc.) and we sang a downdown song -- one that gets the harrier drinking down his or her beer as we chant downdowndowndown the whole time.  Hilarious! 

Soon we were heading through the park fields (mud!  puddles!  darkness!) and back into town.  When we found our way back to the store, we wrapped up the Hash with some more silly songs and lots of beer.  I don't think I'm violating any "rules" (there really aren't rules -- just traditions, they'll say) by showing you a list of some of the songs that were sung. 

BEWARE -- THESE SONGS ARE VULGAR AND POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND ALL IN GOOD FUN.  But skip ahead if you're offended by stuff easily and know that if that's the case, hashing may not be for you!  :)

(The Donnie one is the only one where I was a little uncomfortable because of the word choice, but we didn't sing that one anyway)



So as we ended the night and talked about plans for next month's Hash, I was giggly.  We had only run about 3 miles, with a stop in the middle, so it wasn't really a workout at all -- but it was different.  It was fun.  I met new people and had a new experience.  All great reasons to be a drinker! runner!