Today I spent a mile of a 5k running behind a guy wearing only his Fruit-of-the-Loom whitey-tighties. Had I been in less pain at the time, I suspect it would have been pretty funny. And now I finally understand why my better half keeps trying to talk me into boxers.

See ...you CAN learn something valuable while racing. And you learn things you didnt want to know reading forums. Less reading, more racing.

I see lots of people on bikes that make me look twice. Yesterday I saw a guy wearing one of those tear-drop speed trial bike helmets on a el cheapo mountain bike that sounded like it was falling apart. In the past I've seen chubbies wearing matching jersey/shorts combos on beach cruisers. One of my favorites is the guy on the recumbent that's totally sealed with the racing helmet wearing Chuck Taylors and non-matching knee high athletic socks (I don't know what else he might be wearing cuz I can't see the rest of him). The dude does hell though, I'll give him that.

On my run through a local park this morning I saw a man teaching his dog to pick up litter and throw it in the trashcan. I think it was a border collie, and it almost had the trick worked out. He was having trouble actually dropping the litter into the top of the can, but he was pretty close. Not really sure how useful this would actually be. I guess its good to see the pet population practice a little environmental stewardship.

I had to run past 15 or so vultures this morning who were snacking on a dead deer. I just politely said "good morning" and they just stared at me. They're kind of creepy that close.

A similar thing happened to me the other month. I was running on a stretch of sidewalk and this kid stepped out and asked me to make a donation to his HS basketball team... I just gave him a quizacle "are you serious?" look as I passed by.

I've had people try to sell me StreetWise (newsletter that homeless/unemployed people sell in Chicago area) while I'm running. Not only do I not have money with me, but I don't really want to carry a newsletter with me for the remainder of my run lol.

While running by a park I saw a woman walking her cat on a leash. A couple of dogs got loose from another person and immediately went after the woman's cat. The poor cat would get into a defensive posture. Just as a dog was about to snap at it, the woman would pull the leash and swing the cat around through the air to get it away from the dog. I really felt for the cat, repeatedly finding itself dropped into a dangerous spot, then, just as it was about to defend itself, ripped away and airborne and the incident repeated. I ran in to help, but the dogs had been restrained before I got there. The cat looked traumatized but unharmed.

I'm truly sorry but this is incredibly funny I mean not really funny and I am an animal lover but boy it made me laugh out loud.

So here is what I saw on my run this morning. All of these items were in the middle of the bike lane, spaced almost exactly the same distance apart. I don't know if someone put them there on purpose or it was just happenstance. Either way I found it quite amusing and was a little disappointed when I went past the last item. 1. A single Uno card, a green #1 2. A plain white shoe with no laces 3. A shoe lace in the shape of the number 8 4. 3 Budweiser beer bottles in a triangular shape 5. A black studded "dog" collar (I'm certain a person was wearing it at one time) It was almost like a scavenger hunt, but I made the list up as I ran along.