Things you have found on a run and brought back with you

sporting life wrote:

Lot of various sports balls.

Why would one have to ditch a knife before getting home?

See: Simpson, O.J.

Found a phone someone lost when they were drunk. Managed to get it back to them, too.

NRA trucker hat that reeked of ciggerettes. I carried it 5 miles home and washed it three times. Still wear the hat to long runs nine years later.

I've never fired a gun.

C-Note

A gameboy advance with Kirby's Adventureland

I believe way less than half of these stories, but this is a very solid thread!

Most of my running has either been in upper middle class suburbs or in county/state/national parks. For that reason, or because I took my easy days of running way too seriously, I've missed out on some good run-hoarding.

In college we found a Hickory Horned Devil (the larval stage of a Regal Moth) in the undergrowth on campus. Even though it looked decidedly poisonous (turns out it's not), us seniors took it back to our common room and tried to keep it as a team pet for a couple days. I think we fed it lettuce from the dining hall? Not sure why we didn't just get leaves from outside.

We let it go a couple mornings later, after being kept up at night listening to it try to crawl its way up the sides of the paper grocery bag we were using as a sort of terrarium. The scratching sound its legs made on the paper was really creepy.

Godspeed, Spike.

A couple of wallets/cellphones (usually neighbors). Get a gee thanks, or an oh shit. Not much else.

Though I've found quite a few $$, probably up to $300-400 over the years (some piles better than others). Last time I found $5 I tried giving it to the next person I saw. They didn't want it. Oh well. Guess all the money makes up for #1 above.

"Found" quite a few cars running, owners either step in the house or went down the street. Not about to steal a car so not checking if its a remote starter either. Sometimes it's easy to see why there are so many car thefts in my area.

Don't really pick up the abandon cds etc.

A girl...

Bad circumstances but with a good ending.

5 pt deer antler...Ran 5 miles home with it

Weirdest thing ever was a very cold February day in southeast Ohio I was out running on a dirt road and it was getting dark soon. Temperature was probably around 10 and dropping into the single digits that night. As I was running i hear a sound in the woods and here is a boy probably age 5ish crying in the woods. He was heavily dressed but very close to a small stream that I had to jump over to get to him. If he would have gotten wet it would have been over. I picked him up and asked him his name but he just kept crying. So I carry him across the small creek and walk him to the nearest house. Mind you this is a poverty stricken area so the houses were more like trailers with junk cars out in the yard. The lady who answer the door said the boy was hers and he got away while she was feeding the chickens(no joke). The strange thing was that she was not as hysterical or concerned as I thought she would be. She also told me the boy was autistic and was nonverbal hence no response when asked his name. The whole thing was really weird and had suspicion but left the kid with the parent and walked back to my car. I think my run that day was .60 miles but just couldn't complete the run because of that disturbing interaction.

Other than that, things I have found;

Bunji Cords (which I still use)

Dust pan

$20 bill in the leaves in my backyard

cheap old guy wrote:

cats

twice I have rescued cats off the local trail (one was barely old enough to wean).

both now live with my stepdaughter in Denver, hundreds of miles away.

:-) Good job!

I remember talking to a guy at a running shop who always picked up loose change he found lying on the ground while running. Over the years he had amassed hundreds of dollars from this activity. I thought this was pretty neat, but where do you run where people drop change so regularly? Spotting small coins while running is actually hard. Guy must have had eyes like a hawk.

$20 bill - less than 100ft (it was in the parking lot where I started)

3/8" craftsman ratchet - 1.5 miles

rubber bungee strap - 1.5 miles

I've run about 7,500 road miles where I live and that's really all I've found other than a few coins and $1 bills. I've picked up some other tools or pocket knives that were so trashed I just threw them away when I got home.

Skips Arm Day wrote:

I remember talking to a guy at a running shop who always picked up loose change he found lying on the ground while running. Over the years he had amassed hundreds of dollars from this activity. I thought this was pretty neat, but where do you run where people drop change so regularly? Spotting small coins while running is actually hard. Guy must have had eyes like a hawk.

There is always money on the ground at the parking areas around the trailheads. You can just visualize people dropping coins as they pull their keys out of their pockets. A good reason not to carry paper money in your pockets.

Horseshoes. I few miles I guess, I have then hanging in the garage, supposed to be good luck. I sometimes run on horse trails.

I also found a wallet while doing a road run, ran it over a few miles to the address shown on the driver's license. The guy was quite thankful, I refused the few bucks he offered me.

A paddleboat

Ran by a truck where a guy was getting a BJ, and the truck had a for sale sign - I said How Much?

The other morning I ran past an abandoned car, with the keys in it, running. I didn't have to carry it home, though, because it was in perfect working order. Honestly, the things some people abandon!