“What is a Caucus-race?” said Alice….
“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.”
- Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Much like Alice, after being briefed by a Hare, I haphazardly followed the pack as I was told to, not really know what was going on, as it raced down the street into the heart of the Adams Morgan neighbourhood.
Much like the Caucus-race, the people who take part in Hash runs are from all different walks of life, stripes and colours. There was the ex-General who has been hashing every week for the past few years, a high-powered corporate lawyer working on the Capitol, a dance instructor, and two guys dressed in zebra outfits for no apparent reason, to name a few. For h-core hashers, the delight lies in meeting one night a week, after a long day at the office, or whatever they do, at a pre-determined spot in DC, and run a surprise trail, following clues (the trail blobs and other markers) with the promise of beer and revelry both during the trail, and afterwards.
“Are you?”
“This way!”
I was about three quarters back in the pack. Quite naturally a speed pecking order was put in place. The fast ones were leading the way, following the blobs. The code phrase “Are you?” was yelled at the fast ones by those in the middle, and is the abbreviation for: “Pray thee, art thou following the true trail?”.
There were stops and starts every couple of minutes, given the “Check” points. And we had to back track a couple of times after following false trails.
There was also the occasional “Boob Check!”. The marker for this was a chalk circle, with a dot in the middle representing, well, a boob. At a Boob Check, only female hashers could scout the next direction. There was, however, a way that the girls could get the boys to help out, and that is if they flashed their assets.
“Girls are slower runners than guys,” said Fistopher Bolumbus, as we waited at one junction, “Boob Checks are good way to pace the pack and keep everyone together – and there is always the hope that we will see some boobs. It’s all good.”
“Are you?!”
We set off again, this time down some steps into a dimly-lit park. It was still snowy and icy. After checking my footing over rocks and twigs, I looked up and saw ahead the pack gathering around… something. As I approached, I saw a Hare behind a small table giving out paper shot cups with steam wafting out of them.
It was hot cider! Just the ticket. We had warmed up a bit, but just stopping like that made our noses runny… it was bitterly cold.
Then on we went. Up hills, down them, along streets, and through alleyways, we streaked past bewildered streetwalkers, and shirked away from police cars, their interest we understandably piqued. “We aren’t doing anything illegal”, a Hare assured me, before we had set off.
We met the beer van eventually at the bottom of what I now discover is the Adams Morgan Spanish Steps. We were half way through. How long had we been running for? And for how long? No idea. It was a frenzied blur. We all got a pitcher of beer laid out next to the van, and I met a couple of other hashers. One of them, called Whiskey Business was training for a triathlon. He told me that one night a couple of weeks ago, he went out on the lash, got home at 2.30am still drunk as a skunk, but wasn’t tired. So he decided to fit in his planned ten-mile run there and then, and off he went into the dark at 3am. Standard behaviour.
Once we were off again, the only notable stops was a crate of budget lager cans down a dead-end part of the trail that had to be completely consumed before we set off again, and a cranberry vodka shot stop. Cold, this time.
“Are you?!?!!”
Eventually we slowed down near a small park near the Hilton, midway between Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle. It was a short run tonight, something close to 4 miles. But the night was far from over…
