Victim Profile

so what if the kid's rich? assume the kids were all black and poor. should charges be pressed?

About 10 years ago I was running in a new development of $1M dollar homes. The roads had not been completely paved yet and I was on some gravel. This is in a wealthy area of northern New Jersey. A car with some kids in it passes and they throw *rocks* at me. One hits me in the quad, just above the kneecap. I can't run, the car is going too fast to get a license plate. I did see one kid with his head out the window... he had small round glasses on. This came in handy later. I hobbled to one of the huge homes and rang the doorbell. The person who answered did not have English as a first language, but understood that I was in pain and I needed the phone. I called the cops, and to my surprise when they came to talk with me, their radio alerted them that someone else had reported rocks being thrown from the car. Long story short, the car was followed to a home on the "wrong side of the tracks"... very near my home. The cops actually found rocks still in the car. I was escorted to the car and the cop asked me if I recognized anyone. Sure enough, there was the kid with the glasses. The case went to juvenile court, where the judge asked me to explain what happened and how close the rock came to shattering my kneecap and ending my running. I'm afraid that at this point, the righteous anger was gone and my testimony was probably not dramatic. But, I learned that the kid who threw the rock spent some time in a juvenile facility because this wasn't his first brush with the law.

yo yeah wrote:

Why do runners get so angry when cars honk? It used to piss me off, but I've mellowed out in the past few years, so rather than flipping people off I just wave. More often than not the honks are friendly, anyway.

I definitely have a more agressive attitude when I'm out running. What got me mad with the English teacher (who was, in fact, honking to be friendly) was that she honked when she was behind me, while I was running along the side of the road. Got all the adrenaline going.

Humbled wrote:

Well, wizzkid, you just blew my theory about this kind of crap not happening in Canada. Living just across the border as I do, I always thought you folks were more civilized!

Well Humbled, most of us up over here are as I'm sure most U.S. are the same.

Unfortunately runner harrassing and more seriously cyclist harrassing does happen even in sleepy staid old Victoria.

Male. I was 26 at the time, still living in Chicago running from Andersonville home to Evanston.

Problem #1 was running at 10 or 11 p.m. in a neighborhood I had not walked or run in at night.

below is from my Athleticore log:

So my plan was to get over to Albany Park, do a mile or something on the track, and head North along the river, but that got scrapped as I ran for my life! I was just east of the river a bock north of lawerence, and I was running thru a field I looked at some buildings to my left ( looked like a school (~15 min). as I am halfway from the buildings to the street I heard some voices. There were 3 black guys running at top speed toards me, one smoking a cig while holding up his sagging pants. now it got interesting as the got closer and I was looking at a chain fence that was along the street, I veered left to look for an exit and was now going into sprint mode, and finally found an exit...then hauled down to Lawrence and continued sprinting going back east for a couple of blocks! F*** me, well so much for wanting to live in that neighborhood! it's probably better during the day, but it was already late on a friday.

so that jump started an hour long fartlek of mostly equal on/off. something like 800,(then north on western) mile length of Rosehill Cemetary, 400, 250, 800 (howard),250, 400, 600 (home), short400, 600, 600, s400, 600, 600, s400, 600, 600, then ran to ~ davis and back for ~15 min cool down.

very hard day

Distance: 15.25 mi

Time: 1:30:08.00 (5:54 / mi)

Warmup/Cooldown: 0 mi

Temperature: 31°F to 40°F

Intensity: Very Hard

Overall Feeling: Good

32, female-town of 5,000 in South Dakota, run on the treadmill at lunch or the streets at night, depending on time (I have four kids, a husband and two dogs)

When I was running on the treadmill at our local gym, (the window faces the parking lot of our local grocery store) there were three construction guys that drove by, saw me and parked in a sport and WATCHED me run for 20 minutes. I am not small chested by any means, and I suppose that they were getting their kicks. I could see them gesturing. Finally, I put up both of my middle fingers and ran while giving them the bird. My facial expression didn't change, but it didn't take them too long to notice as my fingers were right by the objects of their intense scrutiny. Bastards. They left right after that. :)

Over 40. 11,000. Mostly less-travelled formerly rural areas but including some state roads. The one truck episode related in the other thread where I made it apparent I was prepared to the use a rock for defense.

A group of us were harassed by two twits in a van who said "get off the road" but we all hollered back and they passed on not expecting us to respond, so that doesn't count. [safety in numbers?]

Humorously, I have had some women say "Nice legs!" and "Will you marry me?" (no lie). THAT I can handle.

:D

Cool, and you lived to tell the tale.

I had a ciggarette butt thrown at me from a car stopped at a stoplight once. I picked it up, threw it back in the car, and spit in the guys face. I then had to run through a few back yards to get the the nearest trail to get away. I was pretty fricken scared.

24 year old male, live in a working class neighborhood in Washington DC, and run through a more run down and depressed neighborhood twice every day, on my way to work and on my way home.

I see the same 100 or so people on the sidewalks every single day, either waiting for the bus, daylaborers waiting for work, or homeless folks who have to leave the shelter in the morning. With very few exceptions, everybody I see either ignores me or is friendly to me.

On the rare occasion that anybody bothers me, it's almost always high-school aged kids roaming the street in large groups. My only remotely threatening incident was when a big prick in a Ford Expedition ran right through a stop sign, barely even slowing down. After forfeiting my right of way in favor of not getting pancaked by a 5000 pound vehicle, I shouted "stop means stop, a******!" He got out of his vehicle, left it running in the left lane of a busy 4 lane road at rush hour, and chased me for about half a block down the sidewalk before conceding he wasn't going to catch me and getting back in his monster truck.

For whatever it's worth, I've lived in Albany, Providence, and Akron in the not-too-distant past. I definitely received the most harrassment from adults in Akron, and from kids in Albany. I never had any problems in Providence.

be careful about spitting at people.

of course, i probably shouldn't be one to talk. :)

that's correct and no joke

in the era of AIDS and STD's you can get put away for assault

in some areas a guy wearing shorts is going to draw BAD attention to begin with

28 years old. live in boston currently. have lived and run in upstate ny (pop 25,000), north central PA (pop 10,000), oklahoma, dallas, and just outside philly.

i'm surprised that there have been a couple bad experiences in boston--it has -by far- been the best place for me to run. I rarely hear anything (one time a bum i ran passed screamed "go for the gold" at me....i almost had to stop running i was laughing so hard). Boston seems to have very runner-tolerant people. my HS days were the worst--i had the pleasure of attending a school that's main emphasis was football (upstate NY). i had beer bottles, fire crackers, rocks, and just general garbage thrown at me pretty regularaly by my classmates. been spit on several times. never once fought back. in college and beyond i've become much more defiant. i've found that most people back down if you call them out (though you could easily argue that ignoring them is the best defense).

in general, i've found that the surest way to get harrassed is if you:

1) are running hard

2) are running in low income housing areas or very rural areas (white males wearing NASCAR shirts seem to be the prerequisite for qualifying as an a******)

3) run without a shirt or with short shorts

4) are skinny

and of course, if you're female it's worse (i do empathize greatly--every running girl i've ever known has a horror story about being pursued by someone freaky)

chris

female runners should be allowed to carry lethal defensive weapons

the world is a nasty place

i was running shirtless in the summer of my sophmore year in high school- im 15- i was folowed for a mile and a half through neiborhoods by a pickup full of immigrant workers. I am male (hence the no shirt). i thought that was pretty funny.

male, 30. lived in a rural town in upstate NY (near fiore)until age 18 - never had any problems. college in a rural town in PA - the occasional catcall but nothing much. grad school in berkeley, CA from 22-27. only had one incident there while running through oakland. a car load of kids drove by and said something. i thought it was "we'll race you." i just waved (didn't flip them off). they turned around and stopped a little ways behind me and one kid got out, pointed a gun at me, and said (direct quote), "let's see how fast you can run now motherf***er!" i picked up the pace and they took off.

40, City of 4 million. Run downtown and in lakefront area. Been hastled once by a guy illegally reversing at high speed. I yelled at him and he stopped and seemed prepared to fight. I'm a small guy and figured that pride could move aside and ran a near PB for 3 miles.

Laughter is truly the best approach. Kill them with kindness. As one post stated - don't give them the reaction they want. Coming from someone who has responded in most of the aforementioned ways in the past, waving and smiling is the response that allows me to return home to my family and forget about any negative incident (and I have to be careful because as a teacher for the past 12 years I am recognized by a lot of people). Smile and wave.

42 years old, Buffalo, NY

I once was running and some guy pulled up next to me, rolled down his window and starting yelling at me. He knew who I was because he said my name a few times, but what he was saying is too unpleasent to post here. But he was so engaged in yelling at me he did not realize the car in front of him had stopped, so he drove right into the back of it.