My second Hash

Yesterday (Sat) afternoon I went to my second "Hash", which is a sort of team sport/race where everyone (about a hundred of us) runs through the streets and follows clues of chalk marked arrows. Sometimes the clues are misleading and you have to go back to a certain marking and find the correct lead. There is a lot of shouting and silliness, and people are staring at us wondering what in God's name we are doing frantically running in one direction, then another as a very loose group. The runs are designed to last about 4 miles or so, and at the end if you follow the course correctly, you end up at a bar where everyone drinks and sings silly drinking songs while making playful fun of each other.

What made yesterday's run special was that it was the Annual Red Dress Run, so all the participants (half men and half women) had to wear a red dress. My friend and I found a really cheap clothing store way uptown and got two identical red nylon numbers that were probably just glorified nighties. Cost: $8.95 each. So there we were with 100 other hashers, running through the crowded streets of Soho (right by the Zendo where I meditate, coincidentally), Washington Square, The East Village, the West Village, Union Square and back down through Soho again. It was a beautiful sunny day of about 72 degrees and the tourists and shoppers were out in full force. It was so much fun to see their faces as all of these men and women in red dresses and running sneakers ran by. Some would ask what we were running for and we'd shout out things like "It's the Red Dress Run!" (as though that would explain everything) or "for Menopause Awareness Month" or "for Breast Cancer" or my favorite, "for Beer!" Some people would get excited and start hooting and hollering. Some would just laugh. Most reacted with a combination of bewilderment and amusement, with the tourists leaning towards the former and the natives, the latter. At one point we were running down crowded Broadway and we realized that we had missed a clue so we all turned around and ran right back through the same crowd we had just assaulted 3 minutes prior. As we ran past a sidewalk cafe I held my hand out, red nylon sleeve waving in the wind, and I high-fived several of the diners. It was complete lunacy.