Wildest Training Run Encounter

good thread, here's my contribution:

1) I was running in some nice wooded trails and turned a 90 degree turn right into a deer and fell over - I about pissed my pants as I thought I was going to get stomped or something, but as I ran away, the deer just looked at me like I was an idiot - I started laughing so hard for the rest of my run.

2) In college at a XC/Track party, nakedness was as important as the beer and it wasn't uncommon for some good ol' fashioned streaking to occur. I was outside by myself taking a piss when three of my buddies came running out of the house in just their running shoes to take a mile or so outside. Right when they came out to the side walk, one of them tripped face first and scraped his hands, knees, and ummm.....well.....tip on the asphalt. We were all laughing our asses off for about 5 full minutes before they all got back together and decided to still go. We lived on a corner so they ran about 10 feet in the middle of the street when an undercover cop car turned the corner and almost hit all three of them - they ran into the house quick when the red/blue lights went on and our party got a disorderly conduct ticket later in the night. Oh, what I wouldn't give for the video tape recording in that cop car.

For a time after college I was living with my dad in the boondocks. The living arrangement wasn't bad except for this nasty old lab that lived about a mile down the road. On every run that crazy lab that would come after me, drooling, snarling and snapping at my heels. There was no other option but to run pass this beast twice every run.

On one specific run I get past the lab from hell in one piece and continue on my way. On my return about a mile away from the lab I'm cruising along when I notice a tiger striped pit bull just standing in the middle of the street staring right at me. I slow to a jog attempting to figure out how to get past this guy when, without any warning, he pins his ears back and starts sprinting right towards me. In the 10 seconds that it took him to cover the 200 meter distance that separated us I'm screaming, "No! Stop! No!" I'm now in fear for my life trying to figure out how best to defend myself when he launches into the air right for my throat. The speed of the attack was awesome. The impact knocks me over, I'm now on the ground, flat on my back and the pit bull is all over my face - licking furiously.

It turns out that this is one of the friendliest dogs that I've ever encountered in my life. I eventually pick myself up off the road, thank the dog for not killing me and continue on my way. The pit bull follows obediently to my side. He was such a great running companion that I forgot all about the lab from hell. As we approach, the lab starts his usual stalking routine when the pit bull runs off ahead of me straight for the lab. Ears and tail up, fur standing on edge the pit bull literally chases lab down and pins him to the ground with his body. I was ecstatic and did my fair share of taunting as I ran by. When we got to the house I thawed a stake, fed it to the pit bull and gave him a ride back to where we first met. Never saw him again but that lab never bothered me again.

the one about the pitbull and lab had me laughing out loud. Thank you.

Great story about the pitbull and lab! I have had my share of encounters with mean dogs and wish that I had a friendly pitbull to take care of business for me. My wildest run was when I was warming up for the NAIA Nationals semifinal for the 5k in Fresno last May. My teammate and I were running down the road when we heard what sounded like a firecracker exploding. We both looked in the direction of the sound and realized that it was actually someone shooting at someone else. The shooter fired two more shots and started running directly towards us. We both freaked out and sprinted back to the track. I swear we ran a 4:10 mile to get back to the track because we were so scared. It totally took my mind off the race, but thankfully I was able to qualify for the finals. A little after getting done with the race, I talked to a couple of guys on the 4X4 team and they said that when they were driving to the track they saw a bunch of cop cars about a mile away from campus and that the cops were arresting somebody. I told them what had happened to us on my warmup and they couldn't believe it.

Wow, a thread started in 2003!

They assured me that they had already been to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone earlier in the day and were looking for the Grand Canyon in AZ. I worked at Canyon Lodge for 2 summers in Yellowstone - thanks Mantana.

- One time, at cross country camp, we got pulled over by the border patrol. It was our pre-season training camp last year. We stayed at Ft. Davis, TX, but drove out to Big Bend for one day to run up and down a mountain. When we were driving from Big Bend back to Ft. Davis, we get stopped. I think they stopped all the cars coming that direction. Anyway, the border patrol lady asks where we are heading and asks if we are all U.S. citizens. We didn't have to show ID or anything, but then one of our guys told her some of us were Kenyans. So she asks to see their visas. Since we were just going for the day, they had left them at camp back in Ft. Davis. My coach tells the lady this, but she gets upset and probably doesn't believe him. My coach got out of the van to talk to her and explain who we were, etc., but she wasn't going to let us leave. He was getting mad and the lady was like, "sir, you need to back off." Eventually, she realized that we weren't trying to smuggle Kenyans across the Texas/Mexico border and let us go.

- My freshman year of college, our team almost got shot by a crazy cowboy. We would often go to Ransom Canyon (outside of Lubbock) for long runs, tempos, hill work, etc. One time, after warming up down the road for about two miles, we stopped to stretch, pee, and drink water at an intersection. This was out in the middle of nowhere pretty much, but sure enough a rusty old pick-up comes barreling through the intersection at 70mph. Our coach's (not the current coach) immediate reaction was to flip him off. We did not expect what came next. The truck pulls over and a guy in a cowboy hat gets out and waves a shotgun at us. I was scared, but seriously, was he really going to shoot an entire cross country team?

- That reminds me of another time we almost got killed. Last year at our end-of-track-season party, someone decided it would be a fun idea for all of us to walk over to a local high school track and race a 200 at about 2 in the morning. The track was farther away than we thought, but after a 20-minute walk, we all made it to an intersection next to the track. As we are about to cross the street, there was a car at the stop sign. I don't remember exactly what happened, but the car almost ran some of the guys over. One of our guys yelled something at the car, so of course the car stopped. A big guy gets out and he and my teammate, who is a skinny runner, argue for a bit. Then the big guy opened his trunk, threatening that he had a gun in there. Lucky for us, a girl on the team was dating a javelin thrower and he scared the man away.

I just remembered some that happened in high school...

- My friend and I were running past a neighborhood park. There were several kids skateboarding, playing inline hockey, basketball, etc. There were also some kids out in the street. Two boys (probably 10 years old or so)started running next two us with a camcorder and asked if we could talk about STDs. We said "no thanks" and kept on running.

- We were doing an easy run and ran by some kids on pogo sticks. A girl on my team stopped running and hopped on one kid's pogo stick and showed off her skills for a few seconds.

- I wasn't there, but the guys' team found a woman who had hung herself in a tree they ran by.

this story must be b.s.

pitbull story is money bump

agree

bullpit wrote:

pitbull story is money bump

I met Maria Mutola while I was training in Potchefstroom. It scared the shit out of me.

bumpage, baby. hahahahahaha

BUUUUUMP

Bump

this thread needs some more love