A Drinking Club with a Running Problem

I’m gonna guess that about 12 of the “Teeming Millions” already know what this is about. For the rest of you…

If it has ever seemed to you that there really should be no reason why drunkenness and physical fitness couldn’t go hand-in-hand, allow me to introduce you to the Hash House Harriers (or “Hashers”, informally).

Billed as “A Drinking Club with a Running Problem”, the Hashers are an international group with thousands of participants. We get together whenever we dang well feel like it (usually somewhere between daily and semi-annually, but it varies), drink beer, run (or not, depending on personal preference), and sing bawdy songs, most of which were blatantly stolen from rugby.

The activity itself (there is no way to call this a “sport”, no matter how broadly you care to define the term) is taken from the British game of “hares and hounds” or “paper chase”. One or two hashers are designated as “hares”. They take off with a head start to lay a trail using flour, chalk, whatever. Everyone else is a “hound”. They try to follow the trail to the end (where the beer is).

The hounds act cooperatively, rather than competitively, to follow the trail. The hares try to make things more difficult by laying false trails, trails that loop around, and leaving beer along the way to slow everyone else down.

Anyway, if you have any interest in this, you can get more information at www.harrier.net, and you can find a group near you (really, pretty much no matter where you are) at http://www.gthhh.com/gtroster.htm.

Further, if you’re in the Denver, CO area, be on the 16th St. mall on 6/16 at around 3:00 p.m. You might get a good laugh…

Weird. I’ve never heard of this.

But I did used to go my gym to work out after hanging out at the bar occasionally, sometimes after having 4 or 5 beers. :o

grins at LolaBaby Never heard of the HHHHH? (Honolulu Hawaii HHH) Just wait until Halloween evening, then go down to Waikiki and start looking for chalk marks. Or listen for the clarion calls of ‘On-On’ and ‘Beer near?’ Either that, or the clarion calls of the security dudes yelling STOP RIGHT THERE! moving quickly… ignoring the (male) Hasher in the pink tu-tu blowing kisses at the (male) patrons as they cut through Hamburger Mary’s…

And if you happen to chat with one… see if they remember the first time they (the Hash) went though the drainage/irrigation canal in 'Nalo… :evil, evil, evil grin: “We’re not going through that are we? He must be kidding.” Cut to shot of flashlights thoughtfully provided at the entrance. “Oh shit. He isn’t kidding.” :smiley: :stuck_out_tongue: I’m not sure those who ran it are ever going to let Dad and Flood (I belive he hared it with Flood, I could be mistaken) live it down…


<< Looking! >>

HAH! I knew I’d find one or two of us here!

Honolulu, huh? Do you know Split Enz?

Paging mr. Spiny Norman. Mr. Norman, the white courtesy phone, please…

I attended my first Hash, with the Atlanta Hash, at the tender age of 12. Being forced to do a down-down with a 12-year-old stomach and a COKE is awful, but having it dumped over your head is worse.

However, I persevered, got my nickname (Pee Wee–I was 12), and used to run with the Tokyo Hash when I lived there, but haven’t hashed in ages. Glad you brought it up.

ON ON!

Oh we know about it all right. It’s just that for some reason having even one drink robs my body of all lung capacity.
I can drink.
I can run.
I just can’t do both

On-On!

Known as “Last Boy Scout” in those exalted circles, I’ve run for ages with the Aarhus H3 and the H7 (Hansestadt Hamburg Hash House Harriers (Hummel Hummel!)) and visited a load of the Eurohashes.

Good, clean fun! OK, perhaps not so clean, but certainly good fun.

I haven’t linked up with the LA hashers yet, but I guess it’s just a matter of time.

You just haven’t lived before you’ve run through a shopping mall in a red dress. Or false-trailed half a mile through the brambles down a Cyprus mountainside in baking sun. Or demonstrated knowledge of song lyrics that would make a Russian sailor ask you for a little decorum.

S. Norman

I’ve been a hasher since 1999, in Atlanta, the world Mecca of hashing.

There are more distinct hashes in Atlanta than in either New York or London.

I’ve started threads about hashing here in the past. Do a search on “Fiver” and “hashing” and search “any date” and you’ll find them.

Sweet. I read about this in Maxim a while back, I think. I didn’t know it was such a national phenomonon!

I think I just might join the dallas club…

Split Enz? Must be after my time: doen’t ring a bell at all. Last time I was in the area was '95.

Some random names I do know… Red Sox, Sno-Balls, Barry One-Two :(, Rod-man, Flying Booger (and don’t forget his wife, Flick-n-pick!), Bunny Fu-Fu, erm… quite a few others who’s names escpae me at the moment. And probably for good reason. :smiley: (I myself didn’t Hash, but I got drug to a lot of 'em…) [sub]Maybe I should change the wording of that… nah…[/sub]

Jon -

I saw you post in another forum a few days ago. I figured at the time your handle referred to the HHH. Now I know!

The H3 is actually the only group in town that I haven’t hooked up with yet for a run. I have run with many a hasher, however. The red dress run is coming up soon, July I think, and I’m tempted to go and gawk.

And if I ever hash, I think I’m going to nickname myself Big Gulp. There’s a story behind that, of course, that would be befitting of what I know of you hasher types… :smiley:

They’re here in HK, running around in 90F from one pub to another. No wonder the locals think westerners are crazy.

Dude, they’re so national, they even started out in Malaysia of all places. :slight_smile:

Oi!

Why have I been RUI by myself all this time? :eek:

(If I’m tired it changes to WUI)
(…and if it’s bad enough, it goes to SUI [stumbling])

Former Hasher from Khartoum Sudan and Bamako Mali…checking in.