LIFESTYLE
SUNDAY MARCH 3, 1996
GAZETTE TELEGRAPH - COLORADO SPRINGS
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Running
Wild
Hash House
Harriers chug toward keg of gloden glory
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By Dave Curtin
Gazette Telegarah
They run down streets and
back alleys, ford streams, climb fences, explore
storm drains and scale cliffs. They are the Pikes
Peak Hash House Harriers. Their motto: "The
Drinking Club with a Running Problem."
"We're referred to as
the lunatic fringe of running," says hasher
Charles Baumerich, 45, a retired Army administrator.
"It's not for everyone. You either love it or
you hate it. There's no ambivalence about it."
Hashing has nothing to do
with the drug culture. It's a biweekly hare-and-hound
game in which the hare blazes a trail, marking his
devious way with flour, all the while pursued by a
shouting pack of harriers. It's no coincidence that
the trail usually ends at a bar.
During one recent hash, the
hare devilishly led the hounds to the back of a
U-Haul truck, slammed the door and hauled the hapless
harriers to another part of town.
"We got dropped off
and ran some more," Baumerich recalls. "You
put a bunch of people in the back of a dark U-Haul
and it gets interesting. "I don't know if it was
safe, but it was interesting."
"Another time, we ran
through The Broadmoor hotel lobby. The doorman held
the door for us."
The course is up to the
creativity of the hare. "You never know where
you're going. It takes you to a lot of unusual
places, like the bottom of Fountain Creek where you
get your feet wet," Baumerich says. "We've
had 226 hashes. There's few places we haven't
gone."
Hashing began in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1938 when a group of British
colonial officials and expatriates founded a running
club called the Hash House Harriers. They named the
group after their meeting place, the Selangor Club,
nicknamed the "Hash House."
Mark Zablocki shows up at a
vacant parking lot on Woodmen Road wearing a 7-pound
chain around his neck. It will pound on his chest as
he runs the 5-mile surprise course with 40 fellow
hashers. As the FRB (Front Running Bastard) of the
last hash, Zablocki will be encumbered with the chain
to make sure it doesn't happen again. "It beats
the hell out of your chest," he says
good-naturedly.
"While it may be
personally satisfying to finish first, collectively
it's looked down upon to over-excel," says
Zablocki, who's hash moniker is "Lip Lock
Me."
Continued on page D2
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D2
Hashers:
Some of their rituals are better left unpublicized
The hashers earn the
nicknames -- most of them unprintable -- after their
fifth hash. Originally they were designed for
anonymity -- and some hashers still use them for
that. Now they're a mainstay of the group's essence.
"I don't think any mainstream publication will
want to capture the entire true essence," says
Baumerich, a k a ZIPpY the Cyberpimp.
"We have a -- how
should I put this -- a risque side -- to put it
nicely, especially in the hot tub."
He refused to elaborate.
"A lot of people are
on the straight and narrow in their everyday jobs and
lives but they can come here to let their hair down
and get a little crazy before before they go back to
work on Monday and be a doctor or a nurse or a
military officer," says ZIPpY.
On this day a medical
doctor, teacher, nurse, printer, helicopter pilot and
hospital administrator are among those who gather for
the 227th hash. They are adorned in stocking caps and
earmuffs as the wind chill approaches single digits.
Many have beer mugs belted to their waists.
The oldest of the group,
60-year-old technical writer Bob Hough or
"Silver Moon," joined the group at its
inception in 1988. "It's a fun group. We know
how to party," he says.
Weather never dissuades
them, Hough says. They have run in below-zero
weather, pouring rain and driving snow.
Bruce "Slug
Sucker" Huber is today's hare and unknown to the
ambitious -- and at times drooling -- hounds, he has
devised a devious trail that winds through fields,
business parks, side streets and an ice-filled
drainage culvert under I-25. Halfway is the beer
check, where the runners will pop a Strohs and change
theirshoes, socks and sometimes their shorts -
depending where the trail leads them.
"It's not a
race," ZIPpY says. "Some run it, some jog
it, some walk it. We're by and large extremely
noncompetitive. But each time we try to make it
interesting."
The course ends at Nemeth's
Baja BBQ & Cantina, a restaurant and lounge on
North Nevada Avenue, where "The Beer Chug"
will take place.
"Usually when we start
leg wrestling on the floor of the bar, management
will come over and let us know to knock it off,"
ZIPpY says without a hint of sheepishness.
Noel Lally, also known as
"Jethro Bodine" -- because, well, he looks
like Jethro -- flies to Colorado Springs twice a
month from Mesa, Ariz., to hash with the Pikes Peak
harriers. "The chapter in Phoenix is not near
this caliber of fun," Lally says.
There are thousands of Hash
House Harrier clubs in all parts of the world, with
newsletters, hotlines, directors and even regional
and world hashing conventions.
"I could go to
anywhere in the world and a fellow hasher will
welcome me with open arms as soon as I tell them my
hash name," says Kimberly Todd, also known as
"Fireindahole" and one of 30 women in the
90-member Pikes Peak chapter.
"In some chapters, the
people use it as another excuse to run. Our chapter
is more social than athletic," ZIPpY says.
"Here, it's a great way to meet new
people."
Harriers chuck the rules
and all their worries It's a hashing tradition to
retrieve anything out of the ordinary from the trail
and bring it to "The Beer Chug" also known
as "The Down-Down." On this day, one runner
finishes the course clutching a deer leg. Ray
"Caveman" Burgess once found a human femur
while hashing near Killeen, Texas in 1991. The bone
led to the identification of a body missing for eight
years years.
Rarely is hashing so
serious. "It's a stress release," says
Caveman, who wears a top hat adorned with a turkey
feather and carries a (nonhuman) bone on all runs.
"It's like family. You can be your moniker. I
come here to relax. At work I have to be a strict
by-the-rules kind of guy," says Burgess, an Army
hospital administrator. "Here, I can wear a
dress -- or a thong if I want," which he has
done over his Spandex.
"I do it for the
social aspects," says teacher Sherry Ferguson,
who transferred here from the Houston Hash House
Harriers. "Here you can be whoever you want to
and no one cares," says Todd.
Each hash ends with a
beer-based awards ceremony. Here, hashers nominate
each other for awards for inauspicious occurrences
such as peeing in a ditch or seen catching a ride to
the end. The honored harrier must chug a beer (called
a "down-down") from a toilet plunger.
The restaurant has wisely
placed a plastic mat on the floor to collect thrown
and spilled beer during post-hash festivities. A
group of hashers pick up the mat and drain it into an
obliging runner's wide-open mouth.
Next, the group's religious
adviser, Randy "Stumpy Worm" Mimm is
appropriately recognized. As religious adviser, Mimm
is held accountable for the weather. Today's weather:
not that good. You know what that means. A down-down
out of a plunger.
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HASH-HOUSE
LINGO
- On-before: where the
harriers meet before they run to drink beer.
But not too much beer "because it's real
easy to hurl and that's beer abuse,"
says Charles Baumerich, a k a ZIPpY the
Cyberpimp. "We don't like to waste
beer."
- On-on: the running
event itself and also what the runners chant
when they are on the hare's trail.
- Beer check: the
halfway point of the secret course.
- On-after: the finish
line, not coincidentally, a bar. Also known
as "the beer chug."
- Down-down: a beer
chug, of which there are several.
- Beer abuse: wasting
beer.
- Disorganizer: an event
organizer.
- Mismanagement: club
management.
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THE SCOOP
ON HASHING
* HASH HOTLINE for updates
on upcoming hashes: 719-576-0331.
* WHEN: 2 p.m., alternate
Saturdays, year-round.
* WHERE: anywhere.
* FEES: $5 per hash.
First-timers (visitors and virgins) are free.
* AGE: over 21.
* CLUB TYPE: mixed.
* NUMBER OF MEMBERS: 90.
* AVERAGE PACK SIZE: 45.
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