2nd Edition: Weirdest Running Stories

 It's true! Real life is much stranger than fiction! The first edition of "Weirdest Running Stories" was quite popular. In fact, I received emails for days from people who wanted to share their stories. Here are some more true stories, shared by runners... experienced during training runs!

"This Mountain Goat"
-Matt Mahoney

1) New Yorkers Don't Sweat It

Running a block from my house in Poway,  I saw two police cars speed up and stop at the light where I was standing. Two officers retrieved shot guns from their cars. I stopped and didn't know whether to keep running. They ran across the street from where I was standing and shot a man hiding in the bushes. The guy had just killed two people in a house before the officers shot him. After the shots, I just kept running, like any New Yorker would do.

-Jose Campo

2) You told me this was a good spot!

 Ok. I would need a book to list all the wierd things I have seen...and another book for the funny things. I would be hard-pressed to choose the superlatives from that selection.

Once, I was running along a seldom used dirt road, as I loved to do, when I spotted a car parked along the side of the road some distance ahead. At first I was speculating whether it was broken down or stolen and dumped. as I got closer, I could see there was a person sitting in the driver's seat, who struck me as particularly odd.
As I got closer and closer, he just sat there looking at me. I moved as far across the road as I could get.
Finally, just before I reached the front end of the car I saw him say something, and a girl's head popped up next to him. She did not appear to be very happy to see me.
As I went past, she started punching him.
I  cannot offer an explanation... (but many can connect the dots...)

-Laz

Abandoned Snowmobile
-Dusty Hardman

3) Just Another Blind Cyclist

I saw a blind kid riding a bike. He almost knocked me down. I started to yell "watch out!" Then realized he was a blind kid riding a bike.  -Tom Stockton




Decapitated Hog in Frozen Head
-Dusty Hardman



















4) Go AJ!

I was running the 2008 Vermont 100 miler, my first venture into the distance.  I was nearing mile 72 on a lonely and dark stretch of "hard packed clay road" not sure if I was lost or not or even on course.  In the distance I saw flash-lights ahead and what sounded like the enthusiastic screams of women as I approached.

 I then came upon two young women who appeared to be of college age (I hope) who were cheering for me and yelled that they wanted to "energize" me to help get me to the finish.  With that they pulled off their shirts and began jumping up and down while still cheering for me.  I just stood there in the middle of the road for a few moments wondering if I was hallucinating and said to them that I wasn't sure that I wanted to continue and may just hang out with them.  They laughed at that while still bouncing up and down topless.  Shortly thereafter a car pulls up  and a woman began screaming at them, I'm thinking that she was one of the girl's mothers.  With that, I just ran off and was sufficiently "energized" to continue on and finish my first 100.  I remember it like it was yesterday.

-AJ Johnson
Ocean View, NJ


5) Alone, at 14,000'

A meteorite, brighter than a full moon while at about 14,000 ft while climbing alone on Mt. Harvard around 11 PM of the second moonless night of Nolan's 14 in 2001. It flew from overhead to the southern horizon leaving a vapor trail. A few minutes later I heard a sonic boom. It landed 80 miles south. I don't know if it was found.

-Matt Mahoney

6) Art, Mind You...

Last year, while training for Wasatch... I was running one of the "barely-there" goat trails, just before the beaver pond crossing before the climb to Bountiful B. There, I saw, very artfully posed on a rock two sex toys, one LARGE red one that had an obvious use and a round blue one that kept my friend and I puzzled for miles.
You have to understand, this is in very conservative, Mormon Utah, miles from any access by road.
-Wendy
Mexico City

Had a dream I saw Dean Karnazes in a toga, but then I realized it was real.
-Jerry Armstrong

7) Barkley Pigs

 My weirdest thing was during the Barkley Marathons.. I saw the skeleton of a wild pigs head just hangin' out on a stick on the side of the road before I climbed a steep gully."

 -Sherpa John Lacroix

8) Hey Dude, You're out of Uniform!

I once accidentally ran through the camp site of a civil war reenactment at sunrise, not sure which side.  Weird thing, as the "soldiers" were emerging from their tents.... they were in character....and I was the only one around.  I heard cannons later that morning.

-Doug Carlson

Send your "Weird Running Stories" and/or photos to garmstro@me.com