Wildest Training Run Encounter

I went for a run on Galveston Island several years ago. When it came time to turn around, I realized that all of the exits from the beach looked alike. An easy 5-mile run turned into a 90-minute odyssey.

I found someone walking along the beach and asked where I was. The lady looked at my dark-complected, shirtless, gaunt body and said, "You're on Pirate's Beach, Galveston Island, Texas, United States of America."

I guess she thought that I had swam up the coast from Mexico or something.

Years ago shortly after moving into a new home in New England I went for a run in the woods behind my neighborhood early in the AM......as i ran around a corner i came face to face to a guy dressed in head to toe camoflague gear who had a hunting bow pulled back loaded with an arrow pointed straight at me.....needless to say i damn near shit my pants! I should have checked the damn calendar...if i had i would have realized it was deer hunting season. The guy didnt say a freakin word and just kept he bow cocked and pointed at me as i ran by.....

galloway started gallowalking after me and tried to beat me to death with the penguin.

OK this story may not be 100% directly applicable, as I wasn't running, but I was wishing I was running.

I broke my foot playing ballhockey a couple of years ago. During my convalescence, I visited my brother, who lives in Michigan. During the visit, I stayed with my folks who have a large motor home.

I needed to get a workout, so I borrowed my dad's bike. Unfortunately, it had a wonky seat and busted pedal, so I wound up stuck with my mom's bike. Maybe you had to be there to get the whole picture, but it was a girl's bike (low cross bar), older style, beat up, big fat seat, with a pink plastic basket on the front.

I know it looked pretty lame, but I REALLY needed a workout, so I went out for a few hilly miles on the back country dirt roads. As I was riding, for some unknown reason "duelling banjos" was playing in the back of my mind, and I'll be damned if I didn't pass a couple of fully-camouflaged deerhunters walking along the fenceline, bows and arrows at the ready.

I'm not the worrying sort, but I'll admit that my heart began pumping at an uncharacteristically fast rate as I passed these two fine gentlemen on my way back to the camper.

Not proud of it, but this is a true story.

I have run to within 10 feet of a black bear on two occasions at USAFA.

I was in Atlanta for work years ago and decided to sneak in a very early morning run from my downtown hotel. Anybody who's been to downtown Atlanta knows that three blocks in any direction and you're in some pretty nasty areas. I was maybe a mile into the run, it was still pretty dark out, and I was in an extremely run-down and kind of scary looking area when I passed an incredibly expensive sports car idling outside a ghastly vacant-looking old building. Inside the incredibly expensive sports car were two well-dressed gentlemen staring at me and at least one was clutching a firearm. Hmmm, this might be a good time for a little fartlek. Scared the crap outta me. I finished that one on the treadmill at the hotel.

Attacked by a coyote while on the morning 10-miler was aboiut the only weird thing that has happened....haven't been the same since the rabies shots

A couple years ago I spent a few months working in San Francisco. One day I decided to run across the Golden Gate Bridge to see what sort of trails there were on the other side. I made it about a third of the way across when suddenly this huge voice broadcast across the whole bridge (which is about a mile long) via large speakers and said "man in the blue shorts, turn around and exit the bridge". This, apparently, meant me. So I had to look like a huge idiot as all the tourists watched, and turn around and run back with thousands of eyes on me for what felt like forever(a good 3 minutes in reality).

As I discovered later, the reason that the other side of the bridge was jammed with tourists and the side I had chosen was virtually empty (and thus why I ran on it) was that it was reserved for bikes. Apparently cyclists don't commit suicide, so they keep pedestrians on one side to better monitor them.

While in college I worked in MT during the summer. While out on a training run in the middle of nowhere near the MT/WY state line, a car load of senior citizens flagged me down and asked me for directions to the Grand Canyon. ... for those of you who are geographically challenged ... that would be in AZ. ;-)

CO-Runner, if this were a 'wildest encounter' contest, think we could award you now, before seeing any others, the GRAND PRIZE!

2 Encounters:

1. About 3 years ago, my daughter was 6 mos. old and woke-up at some ungodly hour like 3:00AM. I figured if she is up and I have to be up w/her, I might as well put her in the baby jogger and go for a run. About 2 miles into the run along a park path, I ran into a pack of foxes (not "hot chicks"). They were scared and held their ground. I looked down at my 6 mos. old girl and decided that if I brought her home w/ any scratches, I would be in trouble w/ my wife. I turned around and headed home.

2. I live in south Florida. Just the other day I was running through the same park mentioned above when I saw a large opossum at the edge of a lake in the park. I was about 8 feet away. Suddenly, out of the lake springs a 7 foot alligator who snatches the opossum in his jaws. He then drags the oppossum under the water. Pretty wild!!!

This morning in fact, I saw 5 alligators in 3 lakes ranging between 4-7 feet. It is a good thing that I was running some hard 2000m intervals. Gators start their mating season now so we tend to see more of them. Also saw alot of wild parrots this morning.

Two runs I'll never forget in Overton Park in Memphis:

1. Running past a dead man just as the police were arriving. He had been shot after a bad drug deal on the golf course.

2. Encountering a man using a full wind-up to spank his monkey.

San Francisco has a lot of crazy homeless dudes wandering around the place and you are always likely to encounter one or two of them whereever you run....even in the nice parts of town.

I was running along Marina Green a couple of weeks ago...where homes start about $2 million and go up...and saw this really dirty long haired guy running laps on the grass in his tighty not-so-whities. Ordinarily this wouldn't qualify as a particularly strange SF homeless encounter, but this guy had his hair fully shampooed! He had a big mop of suds on top of his head and bubbles were coming off him as he ran....round and round and round.

stepping on an old couple making out by the trail. that was pretty weird. of all places, why in the prickly dead grass by the trai and they were OLD.

also, a dumb deer wouldn't move off the trail. i wasn't looking, and i ran right into it. after i startled it, it kept following me for about half a mile. that was pretty weird.

plastered has a good one, wherever he is ... something about a murderer trying to lure him inside his house, I think.

Running in Providence, R.I. took a left turn with a pack of about 15 guys and did our usual hop over teh shotr stone wall to continue our loop through the cemetery. Scared the hell out of a high school dude on a blanket humping his lady.

When I was in High School, I went for my usual 6am morning run. About half way through the run this goat started following me. Wasn't sure where he came from, but none the less he continued following me. I tried everything to stop him, shooing him away, yelling at him, running as hard as I could to see if I could drop him. I was running down the main street in town (not a very big town at that) as some of My H.S. Teachers drove by with me sprinting down the street and the goat right behind me. Quite a few stares and droppped jaws. It ended up being the fastest morning run I ever did trying to drop that damn goat. When I got home I went in the house and the goat just stood there in the carport. When my dad headed out for work, he came in the house two seconds later and wanted to know why there was goat in our front yard. As my dad and I were talking, one of the wrestlers on the wrestling team ran by our house on his morning run and the goat started following him. Eventually we corraled the goat again, and called the police to pick him up. I guess I must have ran the goat pretty hard, because as we were trying to put the goat in the back of the squad car, he puked grass clippings & hay all over the back seat of the car. Must have been a nice drive back to the station.

1. Ran within about 20 feet of a Mountain Lion.

2. Saw 3 skunks and came within 5 feet of one on a morning run about a month ago.

3. Ran up face to face with a flock of sheep that scared the hell out of me because I didn't see them until I almost ran into them.

4. Ran by a transvestite. A man wearing a flowery dress complete with pumps and a straw hat with flowers on it. He was just walking down the bike trail I was running on.

I recntly was running with a training partner when we started approaching a bunch of bad ass looking Mexican guys. I turned to my buddy and said "I feel sorry for you man." He asked "Why?". I replied "because I'm faster than you".