Any scary/weird running experiences?

I ran on a local highway in the dark - around a suburb area. I ran into a place with no streetlights and saw a car parked on the bike lane not moving and windows all dark.

I tripped into a pothole because I got scared and now I have a scar on my knee. But I ran past the car and ran in pure darkness for at least 7 minutes with music though.

I don't fear the night anymore.

A few years back, I was running very early in the morning (before sunrise) along the sidewalk and a car approached from behind very slowly (I'm thinking this dude is going to kidnap or grab me) and that's when all my sixth senses came alive when the guy yelled out "HI THERE!"

I've had random dudes come up to me and started talking weird stuff "hey, I've seen you around here before or hey do I know you?"

I was chased by javelinas before..

I've fallen a few times in daylight right in front of traffic and at night.

Well this one counts as weird and maybe a little creepy.

Years ago I was running at dusk on a trail near wheatfields near Pullman, WA. Suddenly there were lots of mice scurrying all over the place, including on the trail. Try as I might, I couldn't avoid landing on 2 of them. Another somehow jumped on the top of my shoe near the tongue and started climbing up my leg but only for a second before it fell off as my leg went up. But that was enough to freak me out. Luckily this strange gathering was only on about a 20 meter stretch of trail and I was free of mice just as suddenly as I came upon them.

I'm scared every time I step on a start line. Unless I'm running a prelim or an inconsequential early season race, I know that I will run right up to the very edge of my current capabilities, and that's a harrowing idea.

Running in the mountains of the country side. I bumped into a herd of cows and big bulls just standing on the middle of the trail, staring right into my eyes. I wasn't that scared because I knew those animals usually are scared of people. So I made some noise and clapped my hands, and slowly the left.

True story.

While with 3 friends on a trip to the wilderness of Alaska years ago we ate lunch in the middle of a meadow about half a mile across. All of a sudden, we heard a pounding sound and looked over to see a bull moose running towards us at full speed. We scattered. For some reason, the moose went after me which was fortunate because I was the only track runner in the group. I could hear the moose huffing and puffing behind me as I sprinted for a thicket of trees on the edge of the meadow. I made it to the thicket in time and zig-zagged through the trees. The moose crashed into branches behind me and got it's antlers snarled up in them. I was safe and believe that, due to an extremely high level of adrenaline, I most likely broke the world 400 meter record in eluding the moose over marshy terrain with no warmup and heavy clothing on!

I later read that bull moose weigh up to 1600 pounds and attack more people than bears and wolves combined most years. It is the 2nd largest North American land animal behind the bison.

Kid running after kipchoge wrote:

Running in the mountains of the country side. I bumped into a herd of cows and big bulls just standing on the middle of the trail, staring right into my eyes. I wasn't that scared because I knew those animals usually are scared of people. So I made some noise and clapped my hands, and slowly the left.

True story.

DEAD ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Early one morning while running I came upon a body that had been murdered a few hours before.

Same. A young woman 96th by hudson in nyc. & not a word about it on news. They buried it. That spot creeps me out.

I was running in Vancouver and a street person was washing his junk in a public fountain.

I haven't been afraid on a run since I started concealed carrying

Libertarian Centrist wrote:

I haven't been afraid on a run since I started concealed carrying

Do the extra weight bother you on long runs?

I was running on bike path when two high school age kids came along either side of me. One stuck a stick between my legs and other pushed my head. This caused me to eat some serious tar and get scraped up from head to toe. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any teeth or break any bones.

A friend of mine described getting circled by a pack of coyotes while out on a run. Sounded pretty scary.

As for me...nothing much. I got lost running on a trail in Colorado as night was getting ready to fall. I ended up running for a long time before I ran into some people who gave me a ride back to town.

CSI I’m not wrote:

Early one morning while running I came upon a body that had been murdered a few hours before.

Same - one murder and one suicide in Toledo in the early 1980s. The murder I thought was just a drunk passed out and didn't stop - read about in the paper later. Brains and blood splattered all over the drivers side on the suicide. I stopped in at a party store and told the guy there to call the cops. When I tried to leave, he told me I had to wait for the police to arrive. Basically him: no f*ing way I had to be at work in less than an hour and was still two miles from home.

20 years later on a 15 mile run out in the country on a new route got seriously surrounded by a pack of large mean dogs. I worked my way to the edge of the road and started picking up branches and waving them off. LOTS of adrenaline drop.

Lastly, have been hit twice by cars (had the right of way both times - both either blew stop signs or red lights). And in the 1970s we would regularly have ' rednecks' throw beer bottles at our XC team. Things are much more civilized now. Isn't this a fun sport?

I was running well in the Austin Marathon many years ago, sure that I was easily on pace to break 3 hours for the first time. I was essentially alone on one block at about the 22 mile mark when I passed an old man standing by himself on a corner.

He glowered at me and barked very angrily, "You better pick it up if you want to break three hours." He was really pissed off.

I scoffed at him thinking, "What the hell is wrong with that old coot? What does he know about me, my goals or my race?"

But, to paraphrase a current politician, SOB - he was right. My watch showed that I had fallen about a minute behind schedule to break 3 hours. I looked back toward the corner where the old man had been standing. There was no one there.

I took off and tried to make up the time. I broke the barrier by 3 seconds.

Who or what was standing on that corner? How did he know what I was trying to do?

Why did he seem to care so much?

24 years ago when living in upstate New York, I went for a Sunday morning run on a typical February morning, meaning it was about 20 degrees with snow on the ground. One moment I was running along the shoulder of a road in a perfectly normal manner, and the next moment I was lying on the ground with a loud buzzing sound in my ears and the sense that the ground was spinning wildly under me. I dug my fingernails into the icy pavement to stop from being thrown off the spinning earth. Quickly the world stopped spinning, the buzzing went away, and I opened my eyes to find myself lying on the shoulder of the same road I'd just been running down. I quickly realized I'd fallen and been knocked unconscious for a brief bit. I went to get up and almost fainted from the pain in my broken arm--I could feel the two ends of the broken bone grinding against each other.

I stood up carefully and assessed the situation. I knew I'd been knocked out but now my vision was clear and I wasn't dizzy, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with my legs. I contemplated trying to flag down one of the few passing cars, but I was only about 1 km from home. So I cradled my broken arm with my other arm and walked carefully home. By the time I got home I was in terrible pain and couldn't drive myself to the hospital (my car was a stick shift!) so I called 911, carefully explained my situation, and an ambulance arrived quickly but with no lights or sirens to take me to the ER.

My broken arm didn't require surgery but did prevent me from running at all for about 4 weeks.

AverageJoesGym262 wrote:

I was running on bike path when two high school age kids came along either side of me. One stuck a stick between my legs and other pushed my head. This caused me to eat some serious tar and get scraped up from head to toe. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any teeth or break any bones.

Similar.

I was running on a gravel trail, and two middle school or high school kids, both on big bicycles, started slowing down trying to goad me into a fight.

They left, and the little one stayed back to try to bother me, so I called him a name (I was in 8th grade.) They gathered and came back to meet me, and they set their bikes and tried to fight me, but I had a good 40-50m gap on them by the time they started running, so they tried running after me and failed, then ran back to their bikes and tried to catch up. The trail luckily ended and split 5 ways around there and was in a public area, so I got away.

I was probably only in 5:00 / 17:xx shape then, too. kinda fat kids.

My first sub 2:00 800 everything turned either a shade of green or black for the last 100m and I passed out over the finish line. Fun times! Still have a scar on my knee and a very slight one on my face