The Hash

Every year, foreign English teachers(usually JETs) come together to run a kind of marathon. They call the marathon a 'Hash.' Two weekends ago there was a Hash in my town, Tamana City.
Two teachers in charge, called the 'hares', create a course and lay out checkpoints around the town for the runners. The poor runners, though, have no idea where the checkpoints are. That's the idea of the 'Hash,' to take a place on a map and have people discover the unique and interesting parts of that particular place. Not that I knew any of this before we started. I just knew to bring some 'running shoes and an open mind.'
The hares painted dots on the city's streets to show possible routes the runners could follow. When we saw the dots, we knew we were on a certain route. Their were true routes and dead-end routes. And there was food placed in coolers hidden strategically along the way. Eventually, the larger group of about twenty split into several small groups of people running and walking, searching for the finish all over town. That's how I made a new friend, 'Hide'. We ended up running most of the marathon as partners. We ran through a school, over top of a museum, passed famous hot springs, through endless twists and turns, and finally up a mountain and down a hunormous slide where the hares were waiting to take our pictures. So it was great fun, the kind of fun I didn't know people were still having. And making friends with Hide and the other teachers made it that much more enjoyable.