Baku HHH

I have been told that hashing groups are quite popular in the UK and Europe and are popping up in major US cities. Labeled as "Drinking Clubs with a Running Problem," they are quasi-athletic groups who enjoy a few beers after a good jog.

It goes something like this: there is a "hare" who marks a course throughout the city and the hashers have to follow the course to catch the hare. In Baku, they use sidewalk chalk to mark the course, but I read in my Runners World magazine that a group in the northeast USA sprinkled flour and they were reported for being terrorists. Yikes.

Anyways, there are arrows pointing which direction to run and at some intersections, there are circles, which mean that the group stops and runners go out in all directions, trying to decipher which is the correct course. And that's how things get interesting. A simple 3-mile course turns into 5 miles or more. When you have found the right course, you yell "on on!" to let the other runners know to follow you. At the finish, there is a "on-in" which means that everyone circles up and runners give non-constructive criticism on the hare's course, or if someone is caught wearing new running shoes, they have to drink beer out of it, or if someone is wearing a running skirt (yours truly!), they have to explain why they bought such an outrageous article of clothing. It's all in good fun, but things can get slightly crude and everyone sings a ridiculous song at the end before chugging a beer.

We've met up with the Baku Hash House Harriers a few times and have never been disappointed. The courses have taken us past places in Baku that I otherwise avoided like the plague. We've jogged past the poorest of the poor shanties, through a flock sheep, past chop shops and Soviet-area factories. We've climbed to the highest point in Baku and killed our quads running back down. We've been chased by children and dogs, dodged cats, cars and abruptly-ending sidewalks. I sprained my ankle running along the train tracks/dump and Kyle got a stress fracture on a rocky hillside, but even then, we went back for more. Really, I could not experience the true Baku any better.

On on!


Sign hanging in Finnegan's Pub, the official watering hole of the BHHH