weird encounters while running

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I usually run at night. Cooler temperatures, less traffic, less noise, cleaner air. Usually pretty nice.

There’s also a lot less people out at that time of night. Often not a single person along my 5k route. So when I
do see someone else on the road they tend to receive all of my attention, which tonight turned out to be a good
thing.

I had just passed my 4km mark and was hitting my stride for the last stretch home. As I came around a bend in the street I see another person 100 yards ahead running towards me on the same side of the street. As we approach each other something didn’t seem right. He didn’t appear to be running for the exercise, as he was wearing baggy cargo pants, big shoes that went “thud thud thud”, and a coat that was far too heavy for running in.

As we got within 50 feet or so, I began to yeild, moving toward the center of the street, and so did he. He was coming right toward me. My first thought was that we’d do the akward left-right-left-shall-we-dance shuffle and sort it out.

Nope. Still coming right at me. Hmmm. Maybe he recognizes me. Yeah. It’s one of my friends who must have
called the house and found out I was out for my run and decided to intercept me. Okay, that must be it.

But I still didn’t recognize him. And he still didn’t yield. With about 10 feet and one second between us, I decide to stop coming up with lesser and lesser plausible explanations for his weird behavior and do something about it. With fists clenched, I raised them up close to my chest and raised my elbows a bit just in time to slam the bastard a little off center. My right forearm hit him right in the center of his upper chest, where the clavicles meet. Didn’t even break my stride, but it damn near knocked him over. After the impact he turned a bit and righted himself and kept on running away, letting out a big “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” Like he was celebrating a victory of sorts. WTF? That’s what I was thinking. I wasn’t slightest bit scared. No huge adrenaline rush or fight-or-flight response was underway. Just wondering WTF that was all about.

I kept running to put more distance between us, looking back to make sure he was still going away. For a moment I considered turning around and chasing him down and beating the crap out of him. It probably would have scared him shitless to see me running after him. A moment later I realized that could be a bad idea. Maybe he had a weapon or was on drugs or was a much better fighter than I. Oh well. Not worth the trouble. Punk.

2

I hate doing the “let me get out of the way” dance. It’s annoying and sometimes hard for someone (especially of my stature, 6’5"). But that is rather odd, if you see him again you should pull a trip move and then just keep running with a yelled “Sorry” over your shoulder.

3

Ya shoulda kicked him right in the pee pee.

4

Nice. I’ve dealt with a few a-holes over the years that for whatever reason, see someone running and think that requires messing with them.

My most memorable encounters happened along two different beach runs. During the first, I passed item after item of increasingly bizarre objects (condom, prosthetic leg, among others) culminating in a bright pink dildo washed up in the surf. The other run I cut through some dunes only to come upon a couple just a few yards away engaged in a rather heated game of hide the salami. Had to do a doubletake on that one!

5

I like to run at night too.

Have you ever been running and spot a lone shoe on the road. Keep running then spot a hat. Get a little further then spot a mitten?

I always fear I’m going to get to the end of the block and see someone naked standing there.

How do THAT many articles of clothing just get left behind on the road? I’ll never know.

…one night I was running and suddenly felt a sharp THUD on my chest. I live in a good neighborhood but it was still such a shock that I got down on the ground. I wasn’t sure if I was shot, having a stroke, if somone threw a rock at me or WHAT! Turns out it was just the underwire of my bra popping out with some extreme force… it left me with a welt.

…another time i was out running in the early early morning, I came across a mentally ill woman crying in the middle of the street. I tried as best I could to talk to her, calm her down and help her find her way home. I guess I pushed her too far and she suddenly went running and crying into the park. I’ll never forget it. I still dream about her sometimes. I hope she is ok. I went to a near by house and called the cops… but I never heard back what happened to her.

6

Geez, where do I start…I’ve been running regularly for almost 20 years, so I’ve seen a few strange ones.

-Running on the side of the road with my wife, who had a short haircut at the time, a pickup truck comes up behind us. Some idiot leans out the passenger window and yells, “Get off the road, you f—ing faggots!” Ignorant AND unobservant.

-Living in a fairly small city, about 50,000, with, as far as I can tell, very little streetwalking activity, I was once asked if I wanted a “date” by two different women in the same block. One, I couldn’t believe my little town had hookers wandering around on a Thursday night and two, I’m in shorts and a tank-top, where did they think I was keeping my wallet?

-Running down the side of the road, someone driving by at about 30 mph hit me in the back of the head with an orange! Didn’t knock me down, but almost. Later, when I had quit cursing, I had to admit it was a pretty good throw.

-Running late at night, around 11:00 pm, on the city streets, I came up behind another guy jogging. I ran up beside him and gave a friendly “Hi.” He replied and I started to pull ahead. Then he speeds up a little to stay with me. Well, this guy had to be 70 years old if he was a day, and no way was I going to let him stay with me, so I kicked it up a notch. Nope, so did he. Pretty soon, we’re both sprinting down the road at 11:00 at night, wheezing and huffing, neither of us having said a word since I said “Hi.” I finally gave in. The old geezer was just too fast for me. When I pulled up, he started laughing manically as he continued on. Once a runner, always a runner.

-Running down a very dark country road at night with my Siberian Husky, a deer came out of the brush and jumped OVER my dog, who was on a leash about five feet in front of me, then continued on to the brush on the other side of the road. That one took five years off my life.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s all that I can remember at the moment.

7

A guy trying to hit on tried running with me. He lasted half a block. It was very funny.

8

My strangest running encounter didn’t take place while I was running, but while I was driving to work.

8:30am Mid-July. Mid to High 80s.
Stopped at a red light on the service drive to the freeway. Tons of morning traffic. A heavily pregnant (8-9 month-ish) woman wearing a sports bra & running shorts jogs past at a pretty brisk pace holding her belly (so it wouldn’t bounce too much is my guess).

Think she was trying to induce labor???

9

I was riding my bike to the end of the road around Lake Eklutna in Alaska one Spring. It was very heavily forested, kinda dark and spooky and you never knew when a moose or bear might make an appearance. The road was closed to cars and was strictly recreational, finally ending at a waterfall about 12 miles from the start.

I was almost to the end and hadn’t seen a soul the entire trip when all of a sudden I came around a corner and here’s this beautiful, fit gal just running her ass off about 50 yards in front of me. I pull up and we have a short conversation in which I find out that we’re both out training for the Mt. Marathon race the next week, a mad scramble up and down a mountain guaranteed to leave you bloody, only here she is running a damn marathon and I can barely keep up with her on a bike. The speed she was carrying at 11 miles with 13 to go was astonishing.

Sure enough I saw her at the race and, yes, her time kicked mine in the ass.

10

Running:

2 naked folks in Berkeley changing the oil in their car right out on the street. That got a few double takes.

Road Biking:

While doing the Trek 100, a massively drunk driver almost took out the entire peleton of 70+ riders. He had this old rust 70’s car and literally was weaving from white line to white line and blowing through all the signs. Scary. And it was 9:30 in the morning!

11

I was running early one morning in Hollywood, CA and came across a girl so drunk, she could barely stand. I half-walked, carried her to her apartment, (fortunately close) and watched her go through almost every key on her ring before she found the one that opened her apartment. Never saw her again.

A few months ago I was running and felt something running beside me. It was a husky that had broken her leash. I called a friend who drove over and we took her to the ASPCA. Her family claimed her the next day.

I lived on Mount Baldy, about 7,000ft altitude, where the barren stone almost glowed blue-white under the full moon. On those nights, I would run a mile down, then back up the steep switchbacks. I worked some of my best magic on those runs.

12

I don’t have one. Yet.

But I love reading these. There are a lot more running Dopers than I thought there were!

Scylla and scout, get your butts in here with your stories!

13

A couple of times I’ve been startled by wildlife while jogging. Once during a foggy early morning run I passed by a red fox trotting up the middle of the road in the opposite direction. Very cool. I’ve been surprised many times by garter snakes slithering across my path in the spring which is always good for a yelp and jump.

Eddy and I used to run at night in a poorly lit park just to scare ourselves and improve our times. One night it was the ‘attack of the huge salamanders’. They were all over the paths like it was some weird migration. We had to stop so we wouldn’t squish 'em.

On some trails in Wisconsin I came across a deer that had somehow impaled itself on a fence and was half eaten. It was awful.

Last summer a beautiful bloodhound followed me home- he wasn’t menacing or anything- just wouldn’t turn back when I tried to shush him away. When I got home I looked at his tags (I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t have any) and called his owners up. They were so happy they brought us over a peach pie when they came to pick him up.

Then there was the jerk who purposely followed me in his car and seemed to get off by yelling crap like, “Come here and suck my dick”. I turned off into the woods but was kind of scared to come out on the other side in case he was waiting. I stopped with the solitary early morning runs after that.

At present I have a swelling the size of a tennis ball on my left ankle from a nasty sprain so there won’t be any more jogging for a couple of months.

14

I saw one of those jerksone nite, too. I was in college (MANY moons ago :wink: ) and was out on a jog around town. Some frat guys pull up next to me and commence with the hooting etc. At the last minute I duck thru an alleyway hole I know, cross two one-way streets, thru another switch to my parents’ street.

I think I sprinted that last quarter-mile in record time. I was only 19; what scared me was the last thing that guy hollered out " I WANT TO F*** YOU !". It seemed like he was gonna jump out of the car and try it.

15

You’d think 5 years of running would result in a story or two. Alas, no!

About the best I can do is tell you that once I was out for a run around a local lake, and there was a fellow out there riding a unicycle.

I do know a friend of a friend who was pelted by a bottle, though. Why would somebody do that??

16

One time I was out running, cutting across a street, and I saw one of those lone shoes in the middle of the road. I was running right by it, so I kicked it over to the curb. I had just passed 2 Jr. High aged kids who were on the sidewalk with a scooter, and one of them shouted out “Why are you kicking my shoe?” Then they said something about a potato, and I glanced back and saw something splatter on the ground a few feet behind me. I just kept running. Apparently this kid had thrown a potato at me because I kicked his shoe out of the street. Why his shoe was in the street, and why he had a potato, I’ll never know.

17

One brutally hot summer afternoon when my dad & I were out running on the back roads of central Illinois, we heard a cat meowing. There in the ditch was a grey tabby kitten. We talked to him for a few minutes, and then my dad picked him up and we continued with our run. The nearest house was quite a long ways away and he said it was too hot to leave the little guy out there. So we carried him for the rest of the run (drenching him with sweat in the process), and brought him home. We already had other pets and so he eventually went to live with my brother’s in-laws. He grew up to be a very beautiful cat (which goes without saying, I suppose).

18

When I lived in the Santa Cruz(Ca) area, I ran every weekend in a wilderness area. Was rather commmonplace to run into wild pigs.:eek:

19

But there are 3 odd things that happened to me.[list=1]
[li]In my tiny little Southern town, a 60 or so year old gay guy tried to pick me up. I’m not gay, & I don’t really know why he thought I was, but he was so insistant, I had to threaten to call the cops to get him to scram.[/li][li]While walking out near the Nashville Airport, where I work, I found a big rubber mallet by the side of the road. No buildings near by. No explaination.[/li][li]Another early morning airport story–I had a skunk follow me along my walk for about 700 yards before we parted company. He was small, barely adult, but certainly not nervous. He was just out for a walk, & seemed to enjoy the company. At least, I assume he enjoyed my presence. I finished the walk smelling the same way I did when I started.[/li][/list=1]