Member-only story

A drinking group with a running problem

What the Hash House Harriers taught me about creativity and friendship

Tim Cigelske
The Creative Journey
6 min readJan 1, 2024

--

Liz was having trouble running. The problem wasn’t so much the pace or even the champagne that she had been drinking. It was the wedding dress.

“Pulling a train is one thing,” she said, tugging the $2 thrift store gown over her tennis shoes. “But having to run with a train is unbelievable.”

But Liz, who organized the event, was still having a good time with about 50 others who whooped it up and ran around town in costumes for the annual Running of the Brides. “This way we can have the party without a prenup or divorce,” said “It’s sort of a no-fault wedding experience.”

The pretend priests, grooms and brides belong to the Hash House Harriers, an irreverent bunch that calls itself “a drinking group with a running problem.” The group has been known to run worldwide in togas, dresses, kilts, lingerie or lampshades — and drink beer all the while.

The Hash House Harriers originated in 1938 with a group of British civil servants and expatriates in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, who began meeting on Monday nights to burn off the calories of their weekend exploits. Rather than a normal jog, they decided to have some fun with their exercise. Hashes, as the runs came to be…

--

--

No responses yet