I was out for my 4:00AM run around my town on Monday and saw one of the most interesting things that I've seen in the 9 years that I've been running.
I was on a back country gravel road and was about to turn a corner when I saw some headlights facing the direction that I was headed. Where this was there is a cattle farm so I thought maybe on a Monday morning the farmer was just out a little early to take care of some things. As I got closer it looked strange. The truck was on. No biggie. The lights were on. Still no biggie. The truck was nosed into a ditch...Huh, that's weird. I looked at the front of the truck and there was no way that was on purpose. I had my headlamp on, walked up to the truck and there in the driver seat is some guy sleeping. Yep, he took a back road to get home from one of the watering holes in a neighboring town, which was about 2 miles away, and nosed his truck into a ditch and "fell asleep".
I went up and knocked a couple of times and couldn't get him to wake up. The door was locked and I could hear the radio. He was OUT!!! I shined my light in thinking maybe it would catch his attention and nothing. I wasn't running with my phone so I couldn't call anyone so I headed back toward town. About 30 seconds later a black pickup came down the road. I flagged him down and told him what I'd found and he said he would make a call to our town cop. Just as he is driving away the other trucks lights shut off, the door slams and the guy starts walking. The black truck drives down, picks him up and heads back to town. I don't know if they knew each other or what, but that truck had been in the ditch for A WHILE.
Weird. Just weird.....Oh yeah. What are your Craziest/Funniest/Weirdes/Most Interesting things you've found or seen while out for a run? Here are some of my others:
An iPhone (which was returned to a Verizon store)
CD's
Tools
Dead animals
Full packs of cigarettes
People throwing bottles of chew spit at me
People throwing fireworks at me
People calling me fatty, tubby, Big Bird (I was wearing a bright yellow shirt), other "fun" names
A porno
PS - The guy driving the black truck that drove up to me said "Out for a jog?" NO YOU BASTARD, I'M RUNNING!!! I'M NOT JOGGING!!!! I MAY BE A LITTLE OVERWEIGHT, BUT IT IS STILL RUNNING
Faster Than Your Couch!
Saddest:
Just a week or two ago, a baby squirrel in the middle of the backcountry road, eyes still closed. The carcasses further down the road, which I had passed a few seconds before, might have been the parents. I had no means of transporting the babies (more were hiding under the giant leaves along the road, squeaking), so I put the one back into the grass/under the leaves, knowing they'd probably be snake food by the next morning.
Weird things:
A couch in the middle of the forest (not me, I'm talking about a real couch)
A "Christmas-y" decorated tree at the trailhead
A beer tap, sadly without a barrel of beer underneath, in the middle of nowhere
The carcass (mostly just bones and fur) of a small deer, between the trail and the creek, perhaps frozen to death
Scary things:
Rattlesnake under my airborne foot, wriggling away
Rattlesnake on the shoulder, 6 inches from my foot
The tongue (including the thicker part from way back in the throat) of a big animal, bitten or cut off, right on the trail under a log across the trail, log covered in blood, and blood on the ground
Fun things:
3 turtles on the road (I put them back into the forest), 1 of them (probably) back on the road again when I came back an hour later
4 or 5 brightly painted miniature birdhouses on a rock in the middle of nowhere
A Canada goose, chasing me along the road, quacking loudly, for about half a mile
Run for fun.
flashlight and sidewalk
Somebody has been crocheting the bottoms of trees in the park I run in. It has to be done in place since the yarn is seamlessly woven around the bottom of the tree. It's like a tree sweater. I've found 3 so far...all spread out over ~9 miles...strange.
**Ask me about streaking**
I've experienced this except I wouldn't categorize it as being a 'fun thing' ... he/she was just defending her flock of goslings, although the goslings weren't that small ... but wow, came right after me, quacking and snapping her beak at me. The trail wasn't that wide so I didn't have much room to get around him/her so I had to stop, back up a little bit, find a large stick, and then run quickly by this very angry goose, waving the stick on him/her as I scooted by.
Haven't found much else ... have run into some rather odd people though.
Sue
Running in the City
I do not miss running in the city!!
05/13/23 Traverse City Trail Festival 25K
08/19/23 Marquette 50 dns 🙄
I think we may have a winner!!!!
Running in the City A hooker having sex in a car on the BIKE trail. The area is known for hookers so seeing it wasn't weird, it was the way she turn looked at em and smiled. Kinda like "Hey a girls gotta make a living" Running past the orange groves I looked into the trees and a guy with his pants down, hand on his tool, and a bag with eye holes cut out. I swear he yelled, "Hey can you give me a hand." I was with a running friend who was behind me. I asked if she had seen him and she said "No, I learned a long time ago not to look into the groves." I do not miss running in the city!!
Mine was actually funny because the goose did not attack me. I don't remember the details, maybe I was running on a wider backcountry gravel road, or on the trail parallel to the road, and the goose was at some distance from me, flying/running/quacking along with me.
I've experienced this except I wouldn't categorize it as being a 'fun thing' ... he/she was just defending her flock of goslings, although the goslings weren't that small ... but wow, came right after me, quacking and snapping her beak at me. The trail wasn't that wide so I didn't have much room to get around him/her so I had to stop, back up a little bit, find a large stick, and then run quickly by this very angry goose, waving the stick on him/her as I scooted by. Haven't found much else ... have run into some rather odd people though.
Will run for scenery.
A Q-tip.
The first one was not strange at all. Nor the second. Third one, yeah, a little weird. The seventh one, many miles further on, was strange. WTF : Gretel Johnson ?
Kind of sweet. Last fall I was running near a rocky stream. The bank was a broad flat area w/ no grass. Someone had very carefully gathered brightly colored autumn leaves, stones, and bits of wood and formed a large heart with something like "TM + BL" inside.
Finally, on a night run with no flaslight I spotted 26 things that looked exactly like an angry bear about to open a can of bear whoop-ass.
Stupid feet!
Stupid elbow!
Was out on the road one time and as I got closer to the red light I saw laying on the ground the wrapper and parts of a tampon, a few feet later was a very used tampon!
I can only imagine some very efficient lady, legs on the dashboard, hoping the light doesn't turn green until she's done.
Tim
Scariest: A night time Pretzel City Sports race, and the guy in front of me had let a small gap open to the next group. I was just getting ready to pass him so I could keep up with the group in front, and a large buck jumped out and ran across the trail. With a 4' by 4' beam of light, I had no idea what it was until it passed. Almost crapped myself.
“Paralysis-to-50k” training plan is underway!
Le professeur de trail
1.) One of my first runs in the dark on trail - I saw a pair of eyes that lit up in my light beam from my headlamp - scampered away. 30 seconds later I pass a gas line clearing - look left - nothing. Look right and uphill I see 3 sets of glaring pairs of eyes looking at me. Being that it was my first time out, it scared me a bit.
2.) Coming up on a turn in the trail, I see a strange red color off to the side of the trail. I get closer and closer a bit weirded out by it. I approach cautiously. It was a (red) laser pointer. How very odd to be there of all places.
3.) Once I saw a skull for a deer. How did I find it? I had to go off trail because of a bear attack.
4.) Might seem strange to some but very common in the summer here along the Appalachian Trail - coolers left with a sign for thru-hikers "Trail Magic" - with any number of goodies in it.
5.) Most interesting is still my bear story - (short version) - had a staring contest for 5 minutes with a bear 30 yds away.
6.) One day, on a run at dusk every 3 min I thought I kept seeing the silhouette of an ememy sniper aiming at me down the trial.
7.) A lady hiking the Hyner 25k last year with a baby strapped to her back. (it was odd because of the difficulty of the trail - some people thought it was dumb of her to do so - as far as I know everything went ok for her)
My favorite day of the week is RUNday
The funniest for me are farm animals in a pasture. They see me running and most time they want to join in, they kick and run a long the pasture fence. I can't help but to moo and whinny at them. It's a riot.
The nastiest is a used rubber in the middle of the road, about a mile farther they were parked in the middle of the road going at it again. It was 7 in the morning.
The funniest for me are farm animals in a pasture. They see me running and most time they want to join in, they kick and run a long the pasture fence. I can't help but to moo and whinny at them. It's a riot. The nastiest is a used rubber in the middle of the road, about a mile farther they were parked in the middle of the road going at it again. It was 7 in the morning.
How could I forget?!? This reminds me of my first hike along the AT near me. It travels up and over a fence, through a farm and then out again. My first time through, cows were right on the trail and gave me the strangest looks. Freaked me out. It's now just part of the trail to me.
Thread killer ..
Not my story , my husband's
He was running the TRT last weekend ( 50K ) and described what to him the strangest thing ( we don't have kids ) He said on the Red House Loop , there is a section where it overlaps and you see people coming towards you , a woman had her shirt pulled down had two tubes on her breasts and it looked as if her nipples were being stretched out into the tubes. He didn't know what to think and the old guy running near him said " now I've seen everything " . I told him it was probably ( I hope ) a nursing mother who had a baby waiting at the aid station.
I haven't found many weird or interesting things, but my parents got on a kick years ago of doing alot of walking with my aunt and uncle. They found a dead body. It turns out that the dead guy was murdered by his cousin or nephew for his social security check.
LB2