I've found the people I want to run with: the San Francisco Hash House Harriers. It's a pell-mell group of randos that gets together weekly to run around the city like lunatics. A hare goes ahead of the group and sets a meandering trail, marked with chalk arrows through the city. The trail has lots of misleading false-starts, steep climbs up infamous San Francisco hills, down secret staircases and through Chinatown alleys. The rest of us runners follow the hare's trail. The point is to help one another out, yelling "On on" like crazy to fellow runners when we get on the right path. Tonight we ran through the Embarcadero and the financial district, all over Chinatown to SoMa and South Park and god knows where else. I liked everything about the SFH3 run, probably because it combines so many of my favorite things:
barely-organized long-distance running
finding cause to appreciate my midbrain matter
being obnoxiously loud in public
friendly strangers
absurdity
exploring
the Bay Area
beer - did I mention there's free beer at the end of the run? There is a lot of beer at the end of the run. But only if you make it to the finish. See you next time.
