Cutting through the freezing wind, the el train shakes snow from the Belmont platform onto a troop of 15 bundled runners milling around below. The Sunday afternoon sun is just a rumor behind a blanket of gray clouds; officially the temperature hovers around ten degrees, but it’s more like five below with the windchill. Apparently, though, the Chicago Hash House Harriers are aware of none of this. Single-mindedly, they trudge around in the snow and frozen gravel searching for a red spray-painted arrow.
All told, not an uncommon day for a most uncommon group. The Chicago Hash House Harriers–who refer to themselves as the CH3 for short–is only one of approximately 1,200 hashing groups around the world, totaling nearly 100,000 members. The CH3 formed a scant 12 years ago, but hashing has been around since 1938, when a group of British expatriates in Kuala Lumpur created the quasi sport as a distraction between swills of beer at their favorite tavern and restaurant, colloquially known as the Hash House. Today hashers have invaded more than 120 countries and 150 American cities.
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Originally hashing was a male-only activity, but today female hashers (referred to as hashettes) represent a raucous 40 percent of worldwide membership. There are also several female-only clubs scattered around the world, in which men are allowed to participate but only women can be officers, hares, and pack leaders.
Two other clubs also call Chicago home: the Chicago Full Moon Hashers, an offshoot of the CH3 who run the last evening of every lunar cycle, and a group at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, who hash every Friday afternoon. Several south-side hashers are currently attempting to launch their own group. Members of the CH3 don’t mind the competition; they believe the more the merrier. If Washington, D.C., can support nine Hash House Harrier clubs (H3s), some hashers say, surely there is more than enough room for a few more in a huge metropolis like Chicago.
Different H3s compete heartily for the chance to host an InterHash. Erich Bergs, a jocular Chicago hasher, says of these multinational events: “Much like the Olympics, they can tax a country’s infrastructure.” Bergs, affectionately known as “Sweaty Balls” in hashing circles, speaks from experience, having run in the 1988 InterHash in Bali.
Horn-E doesn’t mind scaring some people off–give him a troop of true hashers or none at all. Although he never was much of a runner, he started hashing six years ago after reading a newspaper article about the group. As he explains it, he’d been looking for a drinking club anyway. “Shit, once I found hashing, I started running just to be fit to hash.”
