My first "Hashing"

1-27-13

Yesterday marked my first "hashing" experience.  My friend, Steph, invited me and it was a first time for us both.  For those of you unfamiliar with Hashing, here's what I got to experience:

First, the email invitation tells you the day, time, and place of the event, as well as the theme.  For this hash, the theme was "Snow Fairies and Snow Men":

 Steph and I opted for tutu's and glitter that was thrown all over our clothes.  Other runners had on fairy wings, and some guys had on top hats.

Once all the runners arrived at Glastonbury High School, we were given chalk and whistles, and the leaders of the run explained the rules.  The leaders (or "Hares" as they call them) are given a 15 min head start and their job is to lay out the route of the run for the following runners.  The Hares place arrows on the sidewalk with chalk to let us know the proper route to run.  The twist comes when there are intersections of roads, then the Hares put down a big circle with two arrows pointing down two different paths.  At this time, the following runners would split up to see which path is right.  One to two hundred feet down the path the words "OFF OFF" or "ON ON" will be on the sidewalk to let the runners know if they made the proper decision (obviously "OFF OFF" indicating the wrong path and "ON ON" indicating the right path).  The runners on the "ON ON" path would blow their whistles to let the other runners know to turn around, and then someone will mark the circle at the intersection to show the later runners which direction to go.

So, the Hares took off and began to lay down the route (about 5 miles) for us following runners, as we scrambled to find warm places to wait (luckily the high school was unlocked and we knew someone with a car at the school).  After 15 mins, the rest of the pack took off and worked well as a group to figure out the path to take....until we all missed a turn....and ran up a REALLY big hill....which we weren't supposed to run.

Luckily, Steph knew the person in charge of the "Near the Beer" station (a place, about 1-2 miles from the finish, where we "fuel up" on some alcoholic concoction and take a breather), and called him up to figure out where he was.  He was in the opposite direction of where we ran to, so we all turned around and ran down the REALLY big hill we weren't supposed to run and found our way to the Near the Beer station.  While we were there, I checked my MapMyRun app and we made an approximately 2 mile detour from the proper path!

Once refueled on Bailey's-spiked hot chocolate, we continued our run down beautiful Main St Glastonbury and finished at The Diamond pub.  The Hashing group received a discount "Happy Hour" menu for apps and beer (I went with a Guinness since I'm a self-proclaimed beer snob and believe that Guinness has recovery properties post-workout...that would be my PhD dissertation if I could use beer in a study, apparently that is not allowed) .  We all enjoyed nachos, sweet potato fries, and wings, and Steph and I received our "First Hash Straws" which we had to drink our beers with:

Overall, this was an experience.  It was cold, slightly disorganized, and did I mention cold??? But it was a great way to get a run in.  This experience has opened my eyes to non-competitive group running as way to break up my running routine.  I feel that as I get into the longer distances of my training, that I will need to group support to help me achieve my goal. 

Thank you, Steph, for inviting me, and thank you to all the fellow Hashers for my making my first Hash one to remember.