Crazy Experiences During Running?

After 33 years of running and living in various countries, I could fill a book with these! Have twice been escorted at gunpoint out of a nice potential running area after it turned out to be militarily sensitive! Lots of macabre stuff involving bodies and graves when I used to live in China. One favorite running route was on a road around an undeveloped "park" which was rumored to house some tombs of lesser members of the imperial family. DIY tomb-robbing (or attempts at it) was popular in the more overgrown areas. Not sure if anyone ever found anything, though. For several years I lived in a newly developing area on the otuskirts of the city; there were lots of migrant laborers on nearby building sites and occasionally, running along riverside paths, I'd find a body. (Probably victims of alcohol plus hypothermia, as always on very cold days in winter.)  Another route out into the countryside (a dirt road along an irrigation canal) seemed to be a popular site for DIY burial. (Chinese friends said that for rural migrants, there's sometimes insurmountable red tape involved in transporting a body home for burial, or legal burial in the city.) Bleh.

Things have not been quite so weird here. About the oddest would be: a walking fish, people who cut off branches from trees and then ride away with them on motorbikes (for???), and a man who dumped a cat out of a bag into a wooded area (letting the cat out of the bag, I guess--my rescue attempt did not succeed). And the lady who tried to sell me coffee from a motorbike while I was running.

You got some weird experiences running.  I'm laughing here.  

And the lady who tried to sell me coffee from a motorbike while I was running. - that's hilarious.

Few months ago I was threatened with violence for running on the sidewalk.

Yeah...

Apparently he wasn't afraid of the teeth on the coyote head mask.

I've told this story before on this forum so it will be boring to some...

Morocco. 1999.

Marathon des Sables, 154-mile running race through the Sahara. Longest stage is 54 miles crossing Erg Chebi, the largest dune system on earth.

It's pitch black dark, the kind of death-dark you only get in the Sahara desert. No moon. I am navigating through the darkness with about 10 miles to go in the 54-mile stage, closest point to the Moroccan/Algerian border. I'm pretty much destroyed by now.

Out of the darkness, completely silently, a huge shape: A man in all black robes on a massive camel. I am dead. He will slit my throat as they have done for thousands of years here, take what he wants and the sand will have my body by morning. No trace. I'm terrified.

I don't look at him directly because I'm too afraid. He just stands there seated up on the massive camel's back in the middle of the vast desert. I keep moving. As I pass him I quietly hear two words:

"Bon courage" He says quietly through his night-black keffiyeh, "bon courage..."

Good courage.

I keep on running and finish the stage. I can still see him.

Here is a photo taken of me earlier in the day that day, I am 223 in yellow shorts. The lads I am with are members of the British SAS and SBS, two of them on Her Majesty's personal security detail.

This is one that freaked me out...

Evening run (about 9pm) during a blackout/power outage in a holiday town in Australia.  Pitch black... ended up running down a sea wall which extends out into the ocean.  Despite the pitch black I could sort of see the white concrete path, and it was flat and uniform, so limited change I would trip over.

Get to the end of the path and its BLACK as black can be - so dark that you couldn't tell the water from the sky on the horizon....

Just relaxing, looking out to sea, then it happened..

This orange object appeared.  First it was very small, but was getting closer - flat on the bottom, curved on the top.

Its getting closer, coming straight at me... flying saucer?? maybe

I'm getting worried cause I'm by myself on this sea wall, a few hundred metres from anything...and its still coming straight at me..

I turn to walk, then start jogging away,

holy hell, a flying saucer is coming straight at me

I'm literally running away, back down the sea wall towards town and I turn to see where its at...

Then I realise what it is - its the moon rising on the horizon..... but because I couldn't tell the sea from the sky it looked as though it was in the sky .....and because it was rising, and getting bigger, the optical illusion was that it was coming closer.....

Yep, I'm the guy running from a flying saucer...

Idiot....

Tame compared to assassins on camels and flying saucers....!

While riding, I found myself smack in the middle of a small town parade once (turned off of a country road, and the parade was turning onto the same road from the other direction). I just waved to everyone like I was supposed to be there

Aaah I even have a photo:
 

I actually like yours better.

I got my teeth kicked in by Baylor this past weekend, be awhile before I am in biting mode again.

DIY tomb-robbing.  This is just about the best line I've ever read on BT.

This wasn't on a run, but one night I gashed my tire on a ride so I had to walk about 4 miles to get home...About 50 yards in front of me I saw a man walking with his little daughter and 3 of these obnoxious lap dogs. The dogs were fussing with each other so the man's attention was focused on trying to split them apart. As he was doing this his little daughter, who had to have been 3 years-old, starting walking out towards the middle of the busy street...It was night time and the little girl was shorter than the hood of the oncoming car that was not slowing down. My first thought was, "please don't let this happen" and then I just started repeating, "no" over and over again. Somehow, the car saw the child and stopped maybe 5 feet away...

I wanted to lay in to that dad so bad, but didn't...Just relieved that it turned out the way it did.

..not that crazy just doing what's right? , running back from a beach run late evening i see a little white dog loose - nearly runs into the path of a bus, the road is busy it's Friday night and it's a hot one.  Heaps of beach traffic - I go over to the dog, no collar no tag.  I put the dog in my car - then knocked on about 10 houses, no-one owned the dog.  Drove to the vet, no microchip - he's closing can't keep the dog he's full.

Phone the local council they will pick up the dog in the morning - took the little dog home, it barked all night.  Was happy when it left.  My daughter wanted to keep it.

My colleague just reminded me of something that happened to me on my lunchtime run last year.

I was running towards the Gardens and I passed a white car - the driver was sound asleep, head back mouth open - wow I thought he must be really tired or really stoned.

On the way back from my run - the car was surrounded by police tape and the coroner was there doing his thing....

The guy's trip was his last.

This is awesome and I could totally see this happening to me!

I was running on a dirt path through our local wooded nature area with my headphones on.  I looked off to my right and saw a doe in the woods about 30 feet in.  I'm just kind of absentmindedly staring at it as it turns to run away and about 10 seconds later bam!  Her buddy was apparently on the other side of the trail and when the doe bolted so did the one I didn't see.  So I was hit by a deer and knocked over while going about 7mph... I think I did scare the crap out of the deer though. :D

That is really my only odd event outside of being chased by dogs, geese and turkeys.