| cool |
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Great stories. Back in college, I was doing my post-organic lab late night run, around midnight. I ran through a rich neighborhood near my college. As I passed one house, I heard a commotion. I stopped to hear what was happening, and I slowly realized that I had stumbled upon a breaking and entering in progress. The burgler, who was very large, realized simultaneously that his breaking and entering had been stumbled upon. He, being much larger than I, gave chase. I've no doubt I would have beat him over the course of 3 miles but this man was a strong half miler and may have been gaining on me as I neared the college. Fortunately I spotted a public safety officer on patrol. I sprinted toward him, sputtering, "burgler". The burgler, who again was quite large, probably larger than both me and the public safety officer combined, wasn't phased. He continued toward us. Officer radioed for backup and a huge ex-marine public safety officer comes charging out on bike, just like a cavalry charge. It was a Kodak moment. Burgler does quick 180 and takes off. They never caught him. Touchy-feely, feel-good runner story: when I was teaching English in Turkey, I would ignore the hazards to my health from cars and pollution and train in the streets of Istanbul. Once, as I was running up a very steep hill in the city, I saw an older street vendor struggling to push his fruit cart up the hill. Thousands of people were passing, including cars which were almost knocking his cart down, but no one was helping. He came to a standstill and the cart started to roll back down on top of him. I handily jumped to his aid and together we pushed the cart up the heel. A crowning moment in US-Turkish relations. |
| XCpotential |
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On an early evening training run last fall, these guys drive by me and some of my teamates and throw an egg at us from their car. It missed, but I yelled at them "Go to Hell!". I look back a second later and the bastards are pulling a quick U-turn. They come back toward us and nail me in the leg with an egg. With egg all over my shoes and leg, I was pretty pissed off. |
| SF Plodder |
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Just got back from my lunchtime run in downtown San Francisco. Saw half a dozen firefighters chasing a baby sea lion up and down the Embarcadero. |
| defunked |
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Here's one I don't like thinking about, but it happened. Probably was about a sophomore in college. Although I'd made the varsity XC as a freshman, I ended up quitting the team after the first season to just run on my own. (Which is a separate story.) As long as I wasn't competing anymore, I backed off the intervals and red-line hard runs and got into running more LSD, long slow distance. Always looked forward to the weekly or biweekly 12 or 14-miler or longer. Living in a small town with lots of dirt roads surrounding, and running LSD and covering a bit of ground, I looked forward to coming up with new routes and roads to run on. Usually I'd scout them out ahead of time just to make sure I wouldn't run into any problems. Also, because of the dog problem in rural areas, I'd learned a trick from some magazine article around that time for fending them off. You buy some nice lightweight lamp-hanging chain and make a belt out of it with a clip on the end. Whenever I would run dirt roads out in the country that had dogs on them, I'd clip on my "belt" before taking off. Worked great, too. Any dogs come at you, all you had to do was unclip the chain and let it dangle and jingle or maybe swing it around a time or two, and just the menacing sound of that chain was often enough by itself for them to turn tail and beat it. Before I learned about this, I'd gotten bit once by a pack of about three friendly farm collies who came charging out from a house by the side of the dirt road, and one nipped me in the stomach being playful not really knowing what it was doing. The thing with dogs is you can never be quite sure whether they're friendly or not till it's too late to react. Even if they *are* friendly they can still bite you. So I became more proactive about scaring the dogs off ahead of time and not waiting till they got too close. Well, one day, I decide to run a new 14-mile route out on some dirt roads I'd never been to before, but made the mistake of not scouting it out ahead of time, or didn't have time to do it or something. And I didn't take my chain with me either, or just forgot. So I'm a little past halfway and not feeling my best on this run for some reason, getting fatigued earlier than normal. As I'm running past a cluster of houses on a dirt road, about 3-4 dogs light out after me from one of the houses, coming on fast. Since I didn't have my chain with me, I reached down and picked up a couple of rocks off the dirt/gravel road and threw at them to fend them off. Well, the owner sees me throwing rocks at his dogs (didn't hit actually them, although I wouldn't have minded), and gets royally po'ed. He grabs his wife and young kid, jumps in his pickup truck and comes barrelling after me down the dirt road. I start to panic wondering what to do. There is a big open field just off the road in the general direction I am heading that I could have cut across, except it is newly plowed, and it would have been very tough going. Plus I am more tired than usual today--didn't have a good head of steam. And then I also notice as the guy is coming past me in his pickup that it has a gun rack and a gun hanging from it in the back window. Don't want to try outrunning a gun. With my escape cut off, this macho guy slams the brakes on when he gets about 20-30 yards past me, skids to a stop, jumps out of his pickup and blocks my path making a big show for his wife and kid. He bellows at me what I am doing throwing rocks at his dogs. Skinny weak upper-body runner that I am, I just try to say something contrite, but he doesn't care and whacks me across the side of the head with his hand once or twice. I am reduced to apologizing even though I am extremely angry and furious at this asshole who can't control his dogs going after someone saying they'd "be all right" (yeah, right), but can't really do anything about it. Once he's blown off his steam he says never to run by his place again, stomps back to his pickup, and drives the short 100-200m back to his house. Shaken and shaking and angry as I was, I continued on my run--but couldn't help wondering what his wife and kid thought about his whupping up on some defenseless skinny runner like me. I remember thinking if I were them I would have been pretty embarrassed to be seen with him during that kind of tantrum. |
| dean moriarty |
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I don't get why my story is so far-fetched. Anybody with some technical sense and the right motivation can put a timer on a rocket... the same thing with C4! You're all just jealous! I stick to my story, because I KNOW it happened! |
| Pete |
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Moriarty, your story is cleary bullshit. How did you DETONATE the C4? In other words, how did you initiate the explosion? It doesn't just go off by itself because some timer starts buzzing, or it hits the ground hard. How did you make it go "BOOM?" |
| guest |
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I went out for an early morning run while I was in Hollywood. Most people were just starting to head home about 8am. I ran past Hollywood High up to the corner, the light was red so I was kinda running in place. When out of nowhere, a crazy lady talking/swearing to no one in particular, picked up a snapple bottle and smashed it on the ground. Needless to say, I turned around. I guess that is why they call it "Hollyweird". |
| Shooter McGavin |
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Yes Dean...I've watched the Discovery Channel...C4 is a very stable explosive; you can drop it from a high building, you can drive over it in your truck, you can chuck it in a fire and it won't detonate. You need a specialized detonator to set it off....and if your buddies at high school were selling those then the FBI would have known about it. |
| thebaba4x8 |
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I was running with my best friend, Joey U. who is crazy. He's the kinda guy you can't look in the eye because he thinks you're challenging him. Well anyhow, we were hitting these trails in upstate New York and he refuses to run on concrete/gravel/anything hard. We came to a fork: One way was a stone bridge and the other a river. Well all in all we ran underwater for about 30 minutes, and it was the most intense thing I have ever experienced. I have yet to experience anything even close to as wild.....Oh, except for winning Manhattan and a 4x8 state title. |
| b u m p |
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b u m p , b u m p , b u m p |
| i'm thirsty |
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Why the hell does this thread keep getting bumped? |
| bump |
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bump |
| I'm Thirsty |
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who cares....bumpsky |
| Nebraska Native |
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This was a few years ago... In rural Nebraska, it is a fairly common practice to use the dirt county roads (well, even some of the less-travelled highways, now that i think about it) as a route for transporting massive herds of cattle from one pasture to another. So, it's mid-October or so and a local rancher is bringing his herd closer to home for winter/weaning. In Nebraska, ranchers commonly eschew the practice of using multiple semis/trailers to transport enormous numbers of animals. Instead, they'll merely "drive" them down the roads using men and women on horses and four-wheelers and the fences on either side of the road to keep the herd in check. So, i'm out for a sunday morning 15 miler on the dirt roads near my home when i crest a hill to run smack-dab into the thick of one of these "cattle drives." The sight of a solitary, brightly-clad spandexed runner heading straight for them, combined with a particularly jumpy herd of cattle was enough impetus for mass chaos ensue. The heard of approximately 200-250 cattle immediately split around me and began scattering in every possible direction. Fences were trampled, pick-ups were banged into by charging cattle, and i was just doing my best to not get killed. I sprinted across the pasture in order to get as far away from that mess as quickly as possible in an effort to save my life and not get shot by my neighborly gun-toting ranchers. Luckily, they were all pretty good-natured about it and the rancher still jokes about it with my Dad and his "crazy runner" son. |
| MIKE |
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I was driving home for thanksgiving with a teammate of mine on a thursday in 2001. we go to school in southern CA, and were driving home on highway 5 to the bay area, which is normally about a 6-7 hour drive. we needed to run, and could only fit in about 40 minutes for the day's run. as we drove along the highway out of Los Angeles, and past San Fernando Valley, we were talking about places to run. i knew of a few lakes nearby, so we stopped at a place called Castaic Lake. It looked about 3 miles in circumference, so we said, "Perfect, we'll do that, and be on our way". It was getting late, since LA traffic SUCKS, and we got there about 4:15. we changed in the parking lot (the only people for miles), and stretched and began the run around 4:30. so after 2 miles or so, (we had already hopped a couple barbed wire fences) and then out of nowhere, is this big spillway. so we're like, "ok, we'll climb up it, then over it, and finish the run". i can't really explain it to well, but the walls were about 8' high and made of concrete and about 1' wide. we walked along them, for which felt like forever, but was actually about 3 minutes and made it to the top, where we climbed over easily, and onto the dirt on the other side. we ran down the hill and back to the shore of the lake on a trail that was there. (we had been running along a trail that fisherman use that is right on the shore). then, we came to another spillway, which was about tice the size as before. by this time, it was about 5:00 and was getting really dark. it had taken some time hopping the few barbed wire fences and climbing that stupid spillway, so we were not about to do that again. we looked at each other and agreed that the only other option was to swim across that stinkin lake. now, i NEVER run with a shirt, but for some stupid reason, i did that day. so, i was decked out in my blue adidas supernova classics, a pair of lightweight nylon shorts, and a hanes t-shirt, and ben was wearin something similar, and we said a prayer, then swam across that stupid lake. well, it took quite a long time, and it seemed to get longer as we were in the water (which was FREEZING!). when we finally made it to the other side, the sand was sinking like crazy. ben almost lost his shoe, because his leg went down all the way to his knee! we made it out of there, hopped yet another barbed wire fence, and ran a mile back to the parking lot. once we we got there, i grabbed my video camera and started filming, so that we could show the others when we came back home. and so, with that, we stood buck naked in the parking lot changing our clothes with mud all over us, and then had to drive home for about 4 more hours. it would have taken about 5 hours, but ben was hitting 95 like the whole time in that little saturn thing he had. it reminded me of the movie "planes, trains, and automobiles" with john candy and steve martin when they were trying to get home for thanksgiving. i still drive past that lake everytime i drive home. good memories. hope you enjoyed reading this, as much as i have enjoyed the other posts! and yes, i have many stories of seeing people in the woods having sex,but i decided to share this one instead, just for a bit of variety. |
| i'm thirsty |
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someone has too much time to bump old threads... |
| Wayne B |
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A colorful story, but not on par with many. In HS, we had a shot putter who was a 300 pounder. We used to do warm ups as a team, finishing with a slow quarter around the track. One day, late in the season, I hear this commotion behind me. I turn to see people sprawled all over the track. I don't know what's going on and nobody seemed to be hurt, just bumped around. So, I finish up. A few minutes later, word is out. As he was rounding the turn, one of the shot putter's shoes vaporized under the strain. He took down about six people as he rolled. The coach, watching from the straight later described it as "seeing the season end" before his eyes. As it turned out, aside from a few bruises, etc. the only serious injury was to the shoe. |
| Michael Bautista |
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Thanks for the stories! They are real sweet! The wildest for me was running torwards a crazy man who was shouting obscenites and forcing me to take a uturn |
| atl |
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Where was this at? I only know of the 5k loop |
| Ghetto runner |
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While running across the street, this dude cut me off and I punched his car. He then backed up fast enough to catch me running the other way and I stopped to exchange some words with this guy. (note, this was at 9:30 at night in crack town USA, LOWELL, MA) After I said he drove like an asshole and called him a few other names, he pulled out a gun from his glove box and cocked the thing and raised it. Shit made me walk slowly away from his car and I started to RUN the other way! |