Recipe
Calls for Flour, but This Hash Is Far From the
Kitchen
The New York
Times
April 9, 1999, Friday
Leisure/Weekend Desk
By CHRIS BALLARD
Running on a
dirt trail through Inwood Hill Park in upper
Manhattan I vaulted over a fallen oak. Landing in
front of a puddle, quickly side-stepped it like a
running back eluding a tackler, wondering as I did
whether I was lost. Scanning the woods as I ran, I
spotted a clump of white flour, a beacon amid the
mottled carpet of fallen leaves. I was back on track.
I've always
considered jogging to be the athletic equivalent of
Grape Nuts, good for you but terribly dull. As an
ex-college basketball player, I much prefer the
free-flowing chaos of a pickup hoops game to the
monotony of circling a track. So when a friend said
he thought I might enjoy a form of cross-country
running called ''hashing,'' I was pretty skeptical.
It wasn't until he described the runs as ''a cross
between a road race, an Easter egg hunt and a
fraternity party'' that I became curious.
Acting on his
recommendation, I called the New York City Hash House
Harriers, a group of joggers who meet every week to
follow a flour-marked trail as it meanders, often
looping back upon itself, over four to five miles of
Manhattan streets, parks and bridges. At the
conclusion of each run the joggers gather at a bar --
sweaty and soiled -- for post-run analysis, food and
a lot of beer.
I called Roy
Gilbert, a transplanted Londoner who was the
approaching run's ''hare,'' the hasher responsible
for setting the trail. Mr. Gilbert, a former soccer
enthusiast who had converted to hashing after a knee
injury, was an affable chap who encouraged me to join
the group the next Sunday, assuring me I needed only
take along ''running shoes, a sense of humor and $15
for beer.''
Arriving at the
start point for the hash outside the 207th Street
subway stop on the A train, I joined a group of
bare-legged runners who were milling about, basking
in the mild weather. Rounding everybody up, Mr.
Gilbert explained the trail markings for the
beginners.
''Just follow
the flour and chalk arrows until you see one of
these,'' he said, drawing an ''X'' on the sidewalk
with a piece of chalk. ''That means you've reached a
checkpoint where the trail will disappear.'' The
trick then, he said, is not only to find the trail,
but also to find the correct trail: there will also
be false trails that end in a floury ''F.''
With that brief
introduction, we were off, jogging past Cooper Street
north toward Inwood Park. As we passed a pair of
basketball courts teeming with young players, I was
drawn to the staccato sound of leather on asphalt and
fought the urge to bolt over and join the games.
Reminding myself that I was here to run, I continued,
rounding a corner and slowing as we approached the
first checkpoint.
Like
satellites, the front-runners broke off from the
pack, searching in all directions for the trail. The
rest of us idled at the check, calling out, ''Are
you?,'' short for ''Are you on the trail?'' After
climbing up a hillside path, a fleet-footed hasher
gave the green light, shouting: ''On! On!'' The trail
located, we followed him up the incline.
If hashing
seems a peculiar pursuit for the confined urbanity of
New York City, that is because it originated in Kuala
Lumpur, in what is today Malaysia, in 1938. As the
story goes, a group of British expatriots were
hanging out at the Selangor Club, a restaurant known
as the ''hash house'' because of its mediocre fare,
when they decided that a Monday jog would be a great
way to sweat off their weekend hangovers. To spice up
the runs they followed a paper trail in the tradition
of the English schoolyard game hares and hounds.
Afterward, they engaged in enough raucous two-fisted
drinking to effectively negate the intended purpose
of the run. The idea caught on with other expats in
the British Commonwealth and soon spread around the
globe. Sixty years later, there are now more than
1,500 hash clubs in more than 100 countries
worldwide.
Moving at a
brisk pace, we continued on northwest through the
park, where, despite a loop in the trail that briefly
reunited the leaders with the slower runners, the
hilly terrain led to a separation of the pack. Dave
Hardy, a 37-year-old software analyst who said he ran
the New York Marathon in 2 hours 55 minutes last
year, set the pace while a rotund hasher known simply
as Timmy brought up the rear.
I ended up
somewhere in the middle, and almost lost my way a
couple of times as I headed through the woods trying
to find the flour markers. Eventually I caught up to
a contingent of runners that included Gloria Fu, a
27-year-old real estate agent participating in her
second hash. ''I've jogged regularly the last few
years,'' she told me as we crashed through piles of
leaves. ''But this is a lot more fun, and it's a
great way to meet people.'' Her sentiment was echoed
by Danny Choriki, 39, a stout hasher laboring behind
me. ''Hey, running and beer, what's not to like?'' he
said, laughing.
Even though
they are all offspring of the same Malaysian ''Mother
Hash,'' no two clubs are alike. Some focus squarely
on the running aspect and others adhere more closely
to the latter part of the founders' vision by
quaffing liberal quantities of beer before, during
and after their runs. For these groups, the
tongue-in-cheek Harriers motto, ''The drinking club
with a running problem,'' is an apt description.
The New York
City incarnation, which has a number of marathoners
and is a relatively ''serious'' hash, was founded in
1984 by Lee Carlson, a veteran of Singapore hashes,
and Terry Peek, a fun-loving Australian known as the
Pale Whale. They recruited members from the New York
Athletic Club for their first hash, which was held in
Central Park that first August. Over the years, the
ranks have swelled, and summer hashes now routinely
draw 60 runners while winter forays attract about two
dozen stalwarts. The participants are varied: I ran
alongside computer consultants, publishers, brokers,
graphics designers and two geologists from the
American Museum of Natural History. They vary in age
from the mid-20's to the mid-50's, with a heavy
concentration of baby boomers.
As we ran we
hugged the river bank and curled up onto the Henry
Hudson Bridge. Jogging past the toll booths toward
the Bronx, we cruised by carfuls of stationary
motorists who peered at us from inside their
four-door prisons. We probably looked pretty strange
to them, but feeling the wind in my hair and the
sweat trickling down my neck I was grateful I was out
there, enjoying the day, and not trapped in a car.
Looking to my left I was afforded a majestic view of
the afternoon sun glinting off the Hudson. To my
right I enjoyed a look down on the Harlem River as it
curved into Manhattan.
The trail
quickly veered east after the bridge and we ran down
232d Street past tidy homes, dodging recycling bins
and children on tricycles. I kept pace with Vince
Cloud, who at 51 is one of the hash's organizing
''joint masters'' hanging back to make sure everyone
found the trail. Trim and full of energy, he did not
look a day over 40. ''Hashing keeps you young,'' he
told me. ''A lot of us use it as a way to blow off
steam and relax after a hard week.''
Forty minutes
after we began, I arrived at the ''On-In,'' a bar
called Pauline's on 236th Street and Broadway that
advertised ''the best burgers in the Bronx.'' Inside,
next to a sign that read ''Smoking Permitted,''
hard-breathing hashers sucked down glasses of water,
poured beers, munched on burgers and discussed the
run. The general consensus: a good trail, though
maybe a bit short at around four miles.
Sipping a beer,
I took stock. My legs were a little sore but I felt
pretty good. The hash had not stoked my competitive
fires quite the way basketball does; I think I might
have preferred a ''live hare'' hash, an alternative
version where runners try to chase down a hare who's
been spotted a headstart, but it certainly beat an
afternoon at the local track. And as I found out, the
fun was just beginning.
Once all the
hashers had arrived and settled down, Mr. Cloud and
David Croft, the other joint master, convened at the
bar counter to lead the group in the traditional
''down-down'' ceremony. Singling out the two
co-hares, Mr. Gilbert and a giggling woman named Ewa
Mobus, they ordered them each to chug a beer. Without
hesitation, the two tilted back their cups while the
crowd sang, ''Drink it down, down, down!'' The
neophytes were next, pulled up to meet a similar
fate. I tried to hide in the corner, but to no avail;
I was called up twice, once for being a visitor and
the second time for surreptitiously ''taking notes
during the down-downs.'' I dutifully slugged back the
two eight-ounce cups of beer and felt my reporting
skills immediately take a turn for the better.
The group
shrank as the afternoon wore on, but most of the
hashers stayed until 6 or 7 P.M. Talking over beers
and thick french fries, I ended up meeting a Scottish
first-timer named Bernie, who was a veteran of the
Moscow Hash House Harriers, two men who had run
together in Bahrain before coming to New York, who
said the run had been too fast, and four Englishmen
named Dave. One, Dave Hardy, tried to explain the
appeal of hashing.
''I've always
been a hasher first and a runner second,'' he said
while cradling an amber beer. ''Anybody can head out
for a run, but it takes a hasher to do it in style.''
Hounding
a Hare
Hashes are held
anywhere creative hares can lay a trail. In the past,
they have run through Central Park, Greenwich
Village, Van Cortlandt Park and Times Square. If you
are interested in participating, take along $15 in
''hash cash'' and show up at the meeting point on the
day of the run. As Phil Kirkland, a Hong Kong hasher,
once said, ''If you've half a mind to join the hash,
that's all you'll need.''
For times and
locations in New York City and Westchester County:
(212) 427-4692; www.hashhouseharriers.com is the New York Hash
House Harriers Web site with information for hashes
in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware.
For travelers
in the United States or outside the country,
information is provided on the Worldwide Hash House
Harriers Web site, www.gthhh.com.
Copyright 1999
The New York Times Company