Hashers huff and puff their way to record HK$65,000
The city's Hash House Harriers' groups raised a record HK$65,000 in this year's Santa Hash with more than 180 runners.
The annual event in aid of Operation Santa Claus was organised this year by Little Sai Wan Harriers over a course on The Peak.
The two veteran 'hares', Mark Hope and Guy Shirra, laid three trails for 'rambos', 'wimps' and 'walkers'.
'The trails were quite challenging this year,' said Hope, known to his fellow hashers as 'Hopeless'.
The longest and most difficult course, for 'rambos', started from the Mount Austin Playground, going up to the Victoria Peak Garden, passing the Pinewood Battery and coming back along Lugard Road.
Aside from the city's 11 hash club runners, many of whom wore Santa costumes, 40-plus enthusiasts from Malaysia flew in specially for the Santa Hash.
'The number of attendees was far higher than we had hoped for. We also had some individual hashers coming from Thailand, Tokyo and Singapore,' organiser John McKinven said.
Deric Probst-Wallace, 45, was the first to finish the 'wimp' trail. 'The great thing about hashing is that you can see very beautiful scenery that you would never find normally,' he said.
'And there's hash clubs in almost every country so that you can get involved in the community quickly.'
Asked what attracted him the most to the sport, veteran hasher Hoss Preheim said: 'It's the beer drinking at the end.'
In addition to the entry fees, the big-hearted runners also donated generously to a raffle and charity auction held after the run.
