It has been a few years since there has been a thread on this. What is the strangest thing you have found or seen while running? Where did you encounter it?
I saw a truck get stuck under a bridge because it was too tall and the bridge was too low. I think the drivers were trying to let the air out of the tires to get it out. I'm sure others have seen far more bizarre things.
Discus.
I lived in Mt Vernon for a year. I made a wrong turn on a relatively late run (during sunset) and ended up getting into the middle of Sandtown Winchester at night...I could tell I was in the hood (and it's not a "normal" hood like in other cities - more than half of the houses were boarded up and the neighborhood was completely abandoned), and I heard multiple loud "bangs". Turned on the news the next morning, and someone was shot a block away from me.
I moved out to a rural area just over a decade later, and was hit by a deer once (long story) and heard gunfire a couple of other times, but hunting is so much different from gang violence.
During a long run with my college team, we had a couple horses who had escaped their enclosure charge us and run us off the road. I've also been chased by coyotes and dogs during runs.
About 50 years ago I was on a Saturday morning run with a few friends. We were in an isolated area of San Francisco called Land's End when this guy came running towards us with blood running down his cheek. He ran by us with a wild look in his eyes and didn't say a word. The next day we read in the paper that a woman had been attacked in that same area.
other than that, though, I haven't had anything eventful. I've heard a couple of shootings when walking but that's normal crime so I don't really care
Effing skunk. Scared the piss outta me on a night run. It was wobbling along the side of the road in the same direction I was running. I don't think I've ever changed gears so quickly when I spotted it.
Bear is the first.
Illegal pot field with booby traps was the second
A full circle of mounds, on top of a hill, way off trail, it looked way to cult like, Blair witch or something. I wonder if anyone else has seen mound circles? I ended up finding uranium ore around there, huge quartz crystals in ore, first and best find, burnt all of it, it hurt my hands to touch, when it had cooled a bit, I put some in my shoe and was limping. There was gold above a spring head where tree had fallen, I guess the ditches are old gold mines. Gold ore with flakes of uranium occasionally on their dirt roads.
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1. Dead body being removed by a crime scene team. It was an old person who had wandered off from a care facility.
2. tried to run a loop and hit Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri all in 6 miles. Was stopped by the guard of meth operation and followed back to my car.
Unexpected thunderstorm as I was out running. Lighting hit a transformer across the street as I went by, I saw a shower of sparks in my side glance, but I was moving for home as fast as I could to get more than a glance.
The strange thing was the driver that stopped his car and came out with a map in the pouring rain, asking for directions. This was a few hundred yards from home. I stopped, helped him out, then jogged in.
Watched a road kill Rottweiler slowly rot away as I ran by him everyday one spring. Named him, “Rotty.” He probably had been hit by a car in the winter.
I’ve found a decent amount of cash over the years, even a $2 bill.
I had a large dog run at me, barking up a storm. At first it was about a quarter mile away. I was in the middle of nowhere. Zero chance to outrun the dog or hide. Nothing around to use as a weapon. I paused, looked at the dog, and decided to run right at it while yelling and waving my arms. To be surprise and relief, that actually worked. The dog stopped and started trotting the other direction.
DeerLetsrun wrote:
It has been a few years since there has been a thread on this. What is the strangest thing you have found or seen while running? Where did you encounter it?
I saw a truck get stuck under a bridge because it was too tall and the bridge was too low. I think the drivers were trying to let the air out of the tires to get it out. I'm sure others have seen far more bizarre things.
Discus.
About two weeks ago, somebody told me that an extension of a “rail to trail” that I run on occasionally had opened but not officially (ribbon cutting has not occurred yet). The existing trail runs through office parks and suburban neighborhoods. The extension part goes through more industrial/warehouse areas.
I tried it out in the early AM hours —still very dark. At one point, a guy (homeless/insane/both) threw himself against a chain link fence that separates a portion of the the trail from an existing freight train line and screamed something (he may have said “Why?).
I was running on a trail in Burkittsville, Maryland a few years ago and ran into the Blair Witch. Turns out, she's actually a really sweet lady. People totally misjudge her. She said she was having a few students over for dinner later if I wanted to join them but I declined and finished my run. It was weird because she didn't even have a kitchen, a dining table, or even any food in the cupboards that I could see.
Accidentally spooking two moose around the bend while trail running in about 10 miles away from town. Turns out moose are both huge and aggressive! Luckily they stayed away…
Nothing crazy enough to write home about which is surprising because I’ve run at all times in rough areas. I’ve probably seen crazier stuff on the street driving.
the best I got is someone doing a seance or ritual in their basement apartment. No curtains and light on, the guy had a robe on like a sorcerer and had a strange emblem held to his chest. But he was also obese and had glasses so most likely just a huge nerd pretending to do that occult crap like in Skyrim or something.
Same thing happened to me. Ran a mile too far down on the lakefront trail and heard a shooting. I entered the ghetto though so that's to be expected
Of course the thing that scared me the most were other people...throwing things at me, once a car veered over like it was going to run me over and I heard the cackling laughter of the troglodytes inside.
Never had an issue with dogs or coyotes...they're more civilized.
harm city wrote:
but hunting is so much different from gang violence.
That's not what the deer thinks
I was running under a highway overpass with another guy (warming up for a road race) and a car slammed into the railing directly above us, two wheels and half the car came over the guardrail.
It slid like 20' before grinding to a halt, half hanging in the air over our heads. Broken bits of plastic and metal fell from above. If the whole car had come over the rail, we would have been killed.
As it was, we were shocked but unscathed. We finished our warm-up and raced.