As this update is written in 2024, hashing is approaching 90 years old and so are some of the active hashers. In the ‘olden days’, hashing might have been considered to be a bit more ad hoc, since the average age of hasher was younger, they were fitter, and if they got lost, they’d still bash their way out somehow. Although there have never been hash ‘rules’ as such, there has always been guidance in some form on how to set a run. This iteration respects the increasing need to try and keep the running pack together, for enjoyment and safety, whatever their age and ability…within reason of course.

Pre-Ramble (summary of note contents below):

• Try to set at least 2 runs a year if you can. Younger fitter members, if they have the time, may consider setting more than this.
• Choose run areas that are predominantly open land and forest, or similar. Avoid roads where possible.
• Set trail with flour – suggestion to fill 2 litre washed and dried milk bottles with flour, and drill a large hole in the caps. Flour blobs 10-20m apart. You may need up to 6 bags of flour.
• Set out early laying the trail to avoid stress in not completing the trail before 11.00am
• Ascertain in advance that your chosen On On is accepting of 25-30 smelly hashers.
• Run length of about 4.5-5.5 miles (7-9km) is appropriate. Consider including a short-cut to the home trail for some.
• Be creative with the overall shape of your run. Keep the pack and especially front runners guessing as to which way the trail will go.
• Trail lengths can be about 800m but vary this. Finding location for checks with many potential options to check for next trail is more important. Tricky checks keep the pack together – work hard at this and be devious.
• New trail start should be around 100m from the check, but depends on the hash area – more open, can stray to longer than 100m.
• Vary check / new trail options – forward trails, left / right trails, back checks, circular loop checks, hidden new trails. Consider the benefits of ‘false trails’ – read below.
• Always appoint a checking chicken at the start, to be provided with a milk bottle of flour with handle.
• Appoint a hash horn.
• Hare running with the pack – need is debatable. Depends partly on hare’s confidence in the pack being able to break all the checks that they have set; as well as the hare feeling fit enough to go round again with the pack.
• Advance preparation – Google Earth and similar can help. The more recces conducted can lead to better quality and tricky trails and checks. Minimum of 2 recces, but maybe up to 5.
• Consider including a Sip Stop during the run, along with snacks at the end of the run.
• Provide Hare Raiser with directions to run-site and On On well in advance of your run, at least 3 weeks if you can.

The Details

This section is a reference document with respect to the bullet points in the Pre-Ramble.

Frequency

Two trails a year will endear you to the Hare Raiser, but younger fitter members, if they have the time, may consider setting more than this, especially as it becomes more difficult for the Hare Raiser to find fit and willing hares.

Venue

Avoid urban settings and blacktop.  Try to also avoid areas recently hashed (check SH3 website – Other Interest/ Archives / Runday Shags).  For a good turn-out of members choose a central Surrey location.  The car park must hold some 20-30 more cars on a Sunday morning than is usual there.  Confirm that your chosen pub wants hashers (tell them ‘About 25-30’).  Check whether they can park at the pub.

Materials

Set the trail with blobs/streaks of white flour. Old plastic 2 litre milk bottles, cleaned out, dried, and filled with flour – hole in the cap, works well (fill them with a funnel of sorts [rolled cereal cardboard works for me] in advance of setting the run!!). If setting a short-cut trail, consider only for the short-cut section, mixing the white flour with powder paint to make an alternate colour e.g. blue or pink.

How much flour is used depends on the hare’s intent, but in general, the more flour put down the better, for a successful trail. A flour mark every 10-20 metres is probably a good rule of thumb.

Blobs of flour too far apart, slows down the pack, which may help keep the pack together, but can also frustrate the pack, and even result in a lost trail. Infrequent flour blobs can also have the opposite effect of losing those hashers that have become separated, since it is harder to follow such a trail when you are alone. Many blobs of flour set marking the trail makes it easy to follow, with less chance of losing hashers, in which case the hare must work harder at setting checks that are difficult to break (see later). How many bags of flour? No set answer, but 5 to 6 should cover it on a well set trail.

Length

4.5 to 5.5 miles (7-9km) is about right – less than 4 miles is too short. If the run is on the longer side (more than 5 miles / 8km), it may be wise to include a short-cut section, to allow walkers to catch up, and the pack to finish approximately together. It is preferable that the short-cut is in a latter stage of the run (perhaps 2/3 into the run), if possible, and a good idea for it to rejoin the main trail ‘after’ the final check. Otherwise, it may result in the short cutters arriving on the trail and breaking the checks, before the front runners arrive, which is not typically the intent of the short-cut. Ensure that the point where the short cutters rejoin the main trail is clearly marked as such, to prevent main trail runners inadvertently running on to the short-cut and running it backwards! Different colour flour for the short cut trail should prevent this. 

Set out early to reduce stress when setting the trail. An 11.00am run start, may mean the hare trying to be back at the car park after laying the trail by 10.30am. Heading into your area to set the trail by 7.00am is likely to result in an enjoyable less-rushed job, and will provide some time buffer should issues arise during the setting of the trail. Such an early start can be difficult in the winter months, when the sun is yet to rise. Take a torch!

Shape

Try to make your trail irregular; a circle, or square, or lozenge, will be too obvious, although this partly depends on the area chosen for the run, and trail accessibility. Try to outsmart the pack by setting the trail following a check in an unexpected direction. One brilliant hare laid a trail on Staines Moor, where the whole area is visible from any point, by setting the flour as if on the arms of a star. Zig-zags are good, and changes of direction; keep them guessing ‘Right-hander or left?’ Keep the pack in suspense as long as possible as to whether the trail is a left-hander or a right-hander. That way, the front runners may frequently check for the new trail in the wrong direction, and then have to catch up with the pack, once the trail is found.  

Checks

How frequent to drop a check? After perhaps 800m of flour-blobbed trail, a check (a circle of flour) should be dropped. Some trails between checks will be shorter than 800m, but avoid making the trails to the next check too short, since this can lead to trail confusion, and stumbling on other parts of the trail prematurely. That said, two difficult checks say only 500m apart in the middle of the run, can do wonders for bringing the pack back together. The checks are one of the keys to a quality hash run, if by quality, you mean keeping the pack together. A primary aim of a hash run, is to keep the pack together during the run, and bring the pack in close together at the end of the run. The hares must outfox all those checking and especially the front runners, allowing the pack to catch up at their own pace. Avoid laying easy checks in obvious places, that are broken by the front runners in less than a minute, since this will string out the pack. A rule of thumb, should be that the new trail is no further than 100m from the check. That said, in open country this can be extended to perhaps 150m. Any more than this and the pack can become broken up into parts with the mid-pack having to break checks again. Take care not to set checks too close to a subsequent part of your running trail, otherwise the ‘checkers’ may stray too far, stumble on to the later part of the trail, call the pack on, and so short-circuit the trail, with mayhem soon to follow. Another reason to conduct more recces.

Types of check and subsequent trails. Whilst a forward trail from a check can be used to stall or bluff the pack on occasion, it should be used sparingly, the danger being that the front runners, when checking, run directly on to the new trail, break it quickly and string out the pack. New trails to left and right, when contrary to the obvious left or right turn do work, but not for long. Back checks have obvious benefits in that front runners are likely to have searched elsewhere first of all, before turning around and heading back to the middle pack to find the lost trail. Back checks can also lead to mid-pack runners breaking the check on to the new trail, with obvious benefits in bringing most of the pack back together again.

Circular checks work to cause the front runners to run an extra loop, that turns on itself back to where the trail is coming from. The check is set close to the earlier approaching trail but not on it, or it will be spotted before the extra loop has been run. It must be hidden so not to be seen from the earlier approaching trail. A circular check works best, when the front runner on finding the check, also stumbles onto the obvious mid-pack hashers, and realises that he/she has run in a circle to get there. The front runner must easily note that there is a check, or they run the risk of running straight back on to the earlier trail, and going round again, or worse going backwards on the trail they have earlier come in on, thinking they are still at the front. Thus a circular trail of perhaps 200m, looping back to the main trail probably works best. A bit longer can work in open country. Very importantly, the new trail, after the circular check, should be laid, and only searched for, with reference to the position of the check, as described above, say 100m away from the check. Whilst circular checks can work very well, they must be laid with much thought, in order to not totally confuse the pack. A circular check laid occasionally, will allow them to become more familiar to the SH3 pack and so their solutions better comprehended.

Hidden trails. Do not always lay the new trail on an obvious path. One can, at times, set the trail away from the path, perhaps in the trees, so long as that trail after some distance rejoins a recognised trail. Once all obvious trails leading from the check have been investigated and proved fruitless, with the mid-pack now arriving at the check, a trail off a path through easily accessible vegetation can be an option. You may also decide to make it closer to the check than 100m (perhaps 50-70m) to ensure that it is discovered. Do not try this through thick vegetation, and do not extend this off-trail route for too long before joining back to an obvious track.

A new trail that is not immediately on a path, will certainly bring your pack together. As with circular checks, only lay these ‘hidden trails’ occasionally, but again if the ‘SH3 checkers’ start to become familiar with them, they will work.

How many checks? One of a few contentious questions. Eight to ten well-laid tricky checks can be perfectly adequate at keeping the pack together, and allowing a decent length of trail between checks. If each check holds the pack for 4 minutes, then checking can add 30-40 minutes to the trail, which is enough time for the fast walkers to catch up. Some hashers feel that they need double this number of checks, or more. Too many checks, too close together, can add confusion, where the pack no longer knows where the true trail lies, as they run on to old flour marks and call the pack onto a section of trail that has already been run. As above, if the checks are well set and keep the pack together, then you do not need too many of them.

Checking chicken. In order that hashers do not become lost, a checking chicken should be appointed each run, whose job it is to connect the check with the newly found trail, by adding a few additional blobs and arrows of flour in the appropriate direction, once the new trail has been called. The checking chicken should be chosen from one of the regular front running group. He/she should be provided with a flour-filled plastic milk bottle with handle (make it easy on them when they are trying to also run the hash). The bottle cap should have a large hole drilled into it, to make laying the extra flour an easier task. Providing the flour-filled bottle should be the duty of the hare, but the GM / Joint Master(s) should also carry bottles in case the hare has forgotten to provide a bottle.

Marking the check through. When a check has been broken through finding the new trail, and On On called, the circle check of flour should be scrubbed through with a running shoe on the side of the circle that is in the direction of the new trail. This task can be carried out by the checking chicken or any of the pack in proximity to the check, when they hear the On On call.

False Trails. Another contentious subject. A false trail (FT) is a new trail that leads away from a check, but is not the true trail, which lies in another direction and is yet to be found when the FT trail is called. An FT is usually set on a trail that is easy for the front runners to find from the check, that is, easier to find than the true trail. The hasher that finds the FT, does not initially realise the trail to be false, so calls the pack with ‘On On’ as usual. The FT runs for about 100-150m, and should end with a cross that is clearly marked with flour. The cross indicates the trail to be false, and the hasher who finds the cross, calls out ‘false trail’ loud and clear to the hashers behind. The benefit of this is that the pack has been falsely called on, but then once ‘false trail’ is called, they must turn around and return to the location of the check, and keep looking for the new trail from that point. What the hashers MUST NOT DO is spread out looking for the new trail from the cross of the FT, since they may at this point be more than 200m away from the ‘true’ trail if it is found 180° in the opposite direction. The whole purpose of a false trail is to slow down the breaking of the check, and so bring more of the pack together. Do not scrub out the cross once found, since this will lead to confusion for back runners who may come across it later on. As with circular trails and hidden trails, false trails should only be occasionally used, especially until the hash members have become familiar with them and how they work. If you intend to set a false trail, it might be wise to let the pack know at the start of the run, before they head off.

Hash Horn. One of the hashers (perhaps a committee member or some other eccentric) carrying and using a hash horn can also aid in keeping the pack together, especially when the pack has become strung out, and individuals isolated. It is certainly a more traditional method than the current preference of just using your smartphone to point you towards home. However, we must also recognise this can be disturbing to the rural neighbourhoods we pass through, spoiling the peace of their Sunday mornings, as well as the vicar in the local church just beginning his/her sermon.

Go round again with the pack?

There are hares who say a well-laid trail can always be solved without the hare, but there are hares that do not have such confidence, and would prefer to go round with the pack, to help the pack, if and when they become completely stuck. They may also want to guide slower hashers with ‘live’ short-cuts. Also if a hare has been especially devious with their checks, they may wish to go around again with the pack to ensure those devious checks are ultimately broken. An alternative is for the hare to short-cut to and hide in the bushes near a particularly devious check, and only become a ‘spectral vision’ to the pack (or a chosen one) to point them towards the solution if the check can’t be broken. Since some jokers among the public at times obliterate stretches of the trail (as well as slugs and other beasties eating it), the hare going around with the pack can also help if the hare suspects that such atrocities may occur. Similarly if there is rain after the hare has set the trail, parts of the trail may become washed out, and so the hare may elect to join the pack on the run.

Choosing to go round again with the pack remains the hare’s choice.  

Recces

Use mapping in some form, paper or digital, including your smartphone/ GPS if you have one. There are some Apps you can add to your phone that show potential footpaths in your hash area. Think through the whole of your trail with the mapping of choice before you start. Perhaps use Google Earth or a similar program to approximately plan your route and check locations in advance.   Carry a mobile phone of some description.

The number of recces to conduct will depend on how familiar the hare already is with the hash area. Certainly the more recces conducted allows for greater fine-tuning of check locations and trails. An extra recce or two, can make all the difference between an average trail and an excellent trail. More recces can also help avoid the mistake of inadvertently setting one part of the trail too close to another part of the trail, which may result in the pack short-circuiting your run. Depending on what the area has to offer, more recces can also allow you to explore more remote trails, rather than the obvious ones. Two recces should be the minimum. If you are setting just one or two trails per year, then it is worth investing a little more time (if you have it), in putting the trail together, and considering up to four or five recces.

Alone?

Some hares prefer a companion, others not. There is a danger of muddle with two hares each setting part of the trail, but you are less likely to get lost. Ideally, share the recces, or your partner will be reduced to being a bag carrier. Back checks are easier to set with two hares, especially if getting short of time.

Nibbles and Sip Stops

Always welcome if you are feeling generous. Remember that the hash funds provide the drinks in the circle, but you should purchase any drinks for a sip stop. Chips at the On On may be paid for by the Committee, or if the hare purchases for those gathered, he/she can claim back from the On-Cash.

Directions

As many weeks as possible before your run (at least 3 weeks), provide the Hare Raiser with:

• Name of run location and post code.
• Google Map link to the start point.
• What 3 Words location of the start point.
• Google Map link of the On On location.
• A website for the On On location (if available).
• A brief set of Directions / Details in relation to the run start, as necessary. Include any notes that may help the hashers arrive at the run site on time (location dependent), or in relation to the On On, such as parking, etc.

( Updated October 2024)