For me, it was when my college teammates and I got lost in the woods and ended up accidentally trespassing on some hick's property. He chased us down the dirt road in a pickup truck, stopped next to us, and jumped out with a rifle, no shoes and a wife-beater. He never pointed the gun at us, but during his angry tirade I was sure we were dead men. He yelled, "didn't ya see my signs posted?"
Crazy!
i've been chased by a guy with a shot gun one time after cutting through his yard from where the trail i was running ended to the road. that was a pretty interesting run, and i know there have been other things as well.
in high school we had the cops called on us after we stole a newspaper from a lady's mail box and i was poking a dead squirell in the road. my coach actually started crying when she was yelling at us about this incident.
Several years ago in a 5k in Dallas the lead pack of about 6 of us were cruising through the 1st mile in 4:50. We were kind of joking around as most of us knew each other.
Our pack leader decides to drop his shorts and moon the rest of us. For a 100 yards he has his a s s hanging out at sub 5 minute mile pace. CLASSIC.
All joking aside this dude ties me at the line for 1st place in about 15:00.
Not a bad run with the Moon out....
I was running in this race in Mombassa and getting my ass kickey by Kenny Bekele when all of a sudden he stopped and stepped off the course.
Weird.
Around 10 years ago I was hit by a cabbage thrown from a passing car.
Many times I have mulled over this incident but I still can't make any sense of it.
I had a friend in Memphis that was running along and all of a sudden felt something in the side. He grabbed his side and it was all red. He told me instantly he thought "Dang I have been shot!"But then he realized he was just hit with a hamburger and it was the ketchup. Kinda funny.
Veg Rarney wrote:
Around 10 years ago I was hit by a cabbage thrown from a passing car.
Many times I have mulled over this incident but I still can't make any sense of it.
was once out running when this car pulled up alongside me and the driver jumped out in fron of me. he ten proceeded to strip down to his underwaer and perform an ancient tribal dance, called 'muhuri entaaa awaki leng'.
when he finished that, he then pulled me into his truck and poured purple paint all over my feet. snesing my discofort, he then hypnotised me and made me hop 7km on my right foot to the nearest town, wearing just a pair of green Reebok socks, repeatedly chanting 'Digestive cometh, oh happy lord'.
Finally they let me go, and it wasn't until a few weeks later that I suddenly remembered all this. Now that I think about it, it was a slightly unusual thing to happen on my morning run.
This is a true story. I was running in a woodsy trail near my home in Southern Illinois, and I stumbled upon some remnants of a meth lab. I started looking around a bit and also discovered one of the large ziploc bag, not the sandwich bag but the big kind, completely full of weed. Since I don't smoke, I called my buddy who did, and he immediately left class and came to calim his prize. He looked like a child on Christmas morning when I handed it to him.
not crazy wrote:
was once out running when this car pulled up alongside me and the driver jumped out in fron of me. he ten proceeded to strip down to his underwaer and perform an ancient tribal dance, called 'muhuri entaaa awaki leng'.
when he finished that, he then pulled me into his truck and poured purple paint all over my feet. snesing my discofort, he then hypnotised me and made me hop 7km on my right foot to the nearest town, wearing just a pair of green Reebok socks, repeatedly chanting 'Digestive cometh, oh happy lord'.
Finally they let me go, and it wasn't until a few weeks later that I suddenly remembered all this. Now that I think about it, it was a slightly unusual thing to happen on my morning run.
What, no anal probe?
Darryl Dorkman wrote:
For me, it was when my college teammates and I got lost in the woods and ended up accidentally trespassing on some hick's property. He chased us down the dirt road in a pickup truck, stopped next to us, and jumped out with a rifle, no shoes and a wife-beater. He never pointed the gun at us, but during his angry tirade I was sure we were dead men. He yelled, "didn't ya see my signs posted?"
I have many interesting stories, but this one reminded me of one in particular. My freshman year of college, my team went out to Ransom Canyon (outside of Lubbock), to do some sort of workout. We warmed up a couple of miles to an intersection where our coach was waiting with his vehicle that had the water, etc. Anyway, we were down there stretching alond the side of the road. This was pretty much in the middle of nowhere so you don't expect too many cars. All of a sudden, an old pick-up truck zooms through going at least 70 mph. My coach, out of shock and anger, flipped the guy off. Then, the truck slows down and pulls off to the side of the road. A guy in a cowboy hat (I think he had a cowboy hat...oh well it adds to the story) gets out and waves a shotgun. He stands there for a bit and then gets back in the truck and drives off. Only in Texas.
one time on a run I was thinking, "geeze, I wonder how many times someone has started a thread on letsrun about the craziest thing to ever happen on a run?" Wow, that was a crazy run! when I started thinking about that it was definately the craziest run for me!
About 5 years ago I was in a 2 mile road race. It was an out and back course, and I was in about 10th place. At the one mile mark a guy right behind me said, "Isn't this the turn around?". Sure enough, the road was properly marked, but no one was posted there to turn us around. The lead pack was well down the road, I was too out of breath to yell at them (and honestly didn't really want to), so me and the rest of the field made a dash for the finish. I managed to hold off everyone behind me, including the very angry lead pack that finally figured things out!
Not so much of a crazy thing but:
Two weeks before Christmas last year I'm running on right side of well-known road (Beach Dr. in Oak Bay), this elderly woman drives by me very close on my left so close the passenger mirror (right side) clips me on my left hip!! It actually broke off!! Didn't really throw me off my stride just startled me. She DRIVES ON oblivious to what almost happened! 400 plus metres down the road she stops realizing she now has no mirror right side. She asks me what happened as I'm coming by her, "Your mirror is on the pavement back up the road, you hit me with it!"
No point in making a big deal as I wasn't really hurt just a bit of a hip pointer.
I should say, only in Oak Bay or in Victoria...
victoria, b.c., runner, canada wrote:
Not so much of a crazy thing but:
Two weeks before Christmas last year I'm running on right side of well-known road (Beach Dr. in Oak Bay), this elderly woman drives by me very close on my left so close the passenger mirror (right side) clips me on my left hip!! It actually broke off!! Didn't really throw me off my stride just startled me. She DRIVES ON oblivious to what almost happened! 400 plus metres down the road she stops realizing she now has no mirror right side. She asks me what happened as I'm coming by her, "Your mirror is on the pavement back up the road, you hit me with it!"
No point in making a big deal as I wasn't really hurt just a bit of a hip pointer.
I had the opposite happen in one out and back race--was in the lead pack and they sent us in early. What should have been a 4M race turned into 2.94 or so.
I was running at 5am in the dead of winter before school started. Obviously, it was pitch dark outside.
About a mile into my run, a black van slows next to me and drives at my speed. The driver was wearing a black ski mask and just staring at me. This continued for the next 10 seconds or so until he just sped off.
I think that was the most terrifying moment of my life actually.
on the gravel, country roads of my college town, 4 of us distance guys were out doing a 12 mile run when a pickup truck went blowing past us from behind going about 80 mph, almost hitting us and we cussed at them as they went by, leaving us coughing in a cloud of dust. They stopped about 100 yds past us and waited for us with baseball bats and a crow bar. We talked our way out of it. Not sure if they were serious or not, but they sure seemed like it at the time.
I was on a long drive to visit family and stopped along the way for a run in East Stroudsburg, Pa. I found a graveyard that was quiet and moderately sized and decided to run there.
Pretty soon a white Oldsmobile started following me. This went on for about 10 minutes until finally it pulled alongside me and the driver, an old woman, opened the door and said, "I've been up there banging and banging on my husband's crypt and he won't come out and answer me."
"Uh," I replied, "is he dead?"
"Yes," she answered, "and I'm lost without him."
Then she asked me if I wanted to come along and see if I could get him to come out.
One time on an early morning run (4:something in the AM), an old station wagon pulled up next to me BLASTING reggae music. The wagon had 4 rasta looking guys in it, and the interior lights were on.
They literally pulled up next to me, went my speed for a while singing whatever tune they were listening to, and drove off.
I cannot really say that I was scared, but it was pretty weird.
I was in a very residential part of Virginia, so these guys would have been way out of place even in the middle of the day.