From Pennies To Yennies

It’s Thursday! As usual I have no idea what I did with my week and it’s almost over!

Today’s exercising was just a run. Let’s be honest, I’m not a fast runner. On top of that I’ve lost some steam since taking a month or two off for my torn achilles tendon. So I decided to do some research on speedwork and see if I can get back to where I was pace-wise with my running. Or faster!

A large part of speed training is interval work. I went back to what Dan and I now call “Nostalgia Loop”, the .2 mile loop around an apartment building where we first began this crazy running journey. My plan was simple: jog a lap, sprint a lap, until I hit 2 miles. I actually thought this would be easy. I’m either jogging and enjoying it, or sprinting and it’s hard, but over fast!

It really didn’t work out that way. I’d sprint, and then need that entire next loop of jogging to recover. After 2 miles I was more than spent! Was going to do a weight training activity but decided to just rest my legs for the rest of the day.

Since I love talking about the Hash House Harriers so much, I thought I’d tell you a bit more about what I do for them.

I’m a haberdasher, which pretty much just means I’m in charge of designing, producing and selling swag that has our chapter on it, F3H3. Does it pay? No! Does it come with respect?! Nope, I can’t get merch out fast enough! But do I love it? YES.

I was inspired to become the haberdasher when I noticed the other Tokyo hash chapters had all sorts of swag. Why did Friday hardly have any? I set out on my first project- fleece jackets for everyone:


The great part is that it was simple, and everyone loved having a jacket with their special hash name on it.

After the success of the jackets, I had Dan’s birthday run coming up. I decided to surprise him and make shirts for the group. Since he was turning 31, I decided to do an ice cream party, and theme it the colors of 31 flavors. I got partnered with a fabulous graphic designer who is now somewhat of a presence in our group. I don’t have a picture of the front of the shirt, but I used our hare mascot and our designer put him in some birthday attire:

These days, I have creative control on what gets made into shirts, bags, hats etc. It’s become a lot of fun to work with our designer and play with our hare and give him new outfits!

A kimono?

Perhaps a ninja?

Sine Dan and I fund all of these projects ourselves, we can only do a couple at a time, which is too bad. We make it back as we sell them, and don’t take a profit. For now, I’m working on a logo for my birthday run next month! Dan helped with this one and I love it!

I’d love to turn these into running shirt designs for everyone, or even patches, but that would set us back about $8/ person for shirts, or $2/person for patches, so I’ll probably settle on buttons or zipper pulls. Normally it’s not such a bad expense, but with our other projects in the works it adds up!

So that’s a little bit more about what I do for our running club chapter. Have you all Googled your nearest hash kennel to go for a run with? I’m sure you have… I really hope it’s something everyone can try at least once!