In the summer of 2007 Josh sent out a mass e-mail invitation to a "bike hash." Included in the description of what to bring was ... virgins? I had no earthly idea what they could possibly want virgins for. And I definitely wasn't going to ask anyone if they were a virgin to see if I should bring them.

Although I thought I knew otherwise, I was a virgin. Josh explained that a virgin is someone who has never done a hash before. Apparently the idea behind the bike hash was that one or two people took off from a designated starting point and made a trail using markers such as small piles of colored flour or sidewalk chalk drawings. The rest of the pack waited about fifteen minutes before heading out to discover the trail and catch the trail-setters, or hares. It was a lot of fun. The following spring Josh invited me to my first running hash. Again, it was a lot of fun.

By this time, I had done a couple of hashes, but in all the hashes, there were some curious rituals. Most hash clubs around the country have the philosophy of being "A Drinking Club with a Running Problem". All the hash groups in Brevard drink a lot of cheap beer. They also like to stand in a circle for a really long time singing crude and vulgar songs, sitting bare-assed on a huge block of ice, and drinking even more beer. Oh, and they all go by nicknames like Cum Chomper and Ass Packit. Or Dick Sniffa.

It didn't take long to grow tired of the frat boy antics of the hash groups. The shenanigans detracted from the thrill of chasing down the hare to the point where we didn't want to participate. We began to have heretical thoughts. We thought about forming our own hash running group and cutting out the parts of hash culture we didn't particularly care for.

We finally formed our own hash running club in April of 2008. Because the original members all have a common interest in rock climbing, we decided to center our runs around the On The Edge Rock Climbing Gym. We like to run hard, drink water or sports drinks, call each other by our real names, and if we have time, go rock climbing afterwards.

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links to local hash groups:
  http://losth3.bikehash.com/  (mountain biking)
  http://www.bvdh3.com/  (running)
  http://www.h3sc.com/  (running)