RUNNERS
Sex, snakes & spiders!
The strangest things I’ve seen in my 45 years of running
f you live long enough a smorgasbord of bizarre events will come your way; some will be good and some not so good. I have known a murderer and I have known someone who was murdered. I witnessed the miracle of birth and the tragedy of suicide. So it’s no surprise that in my many years of running the back roads and trails of America, I have gathered a rather colourful collection of memories. If I had a nickel for every time I spied a discarded
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pornographic magazine on the side of the road while running, I would be driving a nice new Bentley, instead of my 1997 Honda with 175,000 miles on it. Speaking of sex, years ago I was running in Golden
Gate Park in San Francisco on a sunny Saturday morning. I looked up and saw a car parked right in the middle of the road and I thought, that’s odd. As I passed the vehicle, I couldn’t help but notice the occupants were without the benefit of any clothing. I didn’t question their judgment, because I suspected, given that SF was the ‘City of Free Love’ this amorous couple may have believed they were actually alone in the presidential suite at the Plaza in Paris! Another fond memory happened in a lovely park, on
fairness to the deceased, I wasn’t anywhere near as dead as he.
Also in the interest of full disclosure, what I actually
saw was some cops standing around a body laying on the sidewalk with a blanket draped over it. In any event, this morbid scene helped me finish my run strong, because I imagined the Grim Reaper chasing me down Sunset Boulevard. What happened a few years later was more emotionally troubling than tripping over the deceased. I was warming up for a big 10K road race. I saw a lovely scene, a dad and son sharing a bike ride. The father was seated and the little 6 year old was sitting on the back bumper, with his legs dangling. Suddenly the inevitable happened- the child’s foot got caught in the spokes of the back wheel and twisted it into a horrible disfigurement. The high-pitched scream and
This morbid scene helped me fi nish my run strong, because I imagined the Grim Reaper chasing me down Sunset Boulevard.
a dirt trail I had run on for over two decades. It is the year 1986 and I am newly married to my beautiful wife, Lorelie. I wanted to share this magical forest with her and the plan was to jog an easy two miles. We were running along when suddenly, we stopped dead in our tracks. A spider the size of a freight train was sun bathing right in our path. Lorelie asked me a very reasonable question, “Honey, why did you take me to a hotbed of Tarantula activity?” Yes folks, a real live Tarantula! “But Sweetheart”, I pleaded, “I have never, ever seen any spiders here, let alone one from a 1950 science fiction film!” Have you ever seen a dead guy while out for a run? I
have! It is 1979 and I am living in Los Angeles, California. Now you may say that with such a large population, the odds of tripping over a cadaver are fairly good. Point taken but it was still a shock! I was running an eight mile street loop and found myself red-lining with two miles left. I thought, ‘Wow I’m really dead.’ Then I saw an actual dead guy and realised, in
the look of dread on the fathers face left me weak and sick. Needless to say I did not run well, in fact it was the only race I ever dropped out of. In 1975 I was running alone on the Ole Thistle trail, miles from my home in San Francisco. Fortunately, I looked up just in time to avoid stepping on the biggest rattlesnake in the entire world. With a sheer cliff on one side of the path and a mountain on the other, my options were few. I could turn around and run away from the reptile or I could try to convince the snake to leave the trail, and that’s what I did. My first two rocks missed the mark - for animal lovers; I was only lightly tossing pebbles. When my third attempt landed squarely on the fanged menace and a large rattling sound was produced. The snake’s warning system was so loud that I was convinced he was hooked up to a little reptilian amplification system. I hope to run for many, many more years, and if I do, will surely see a naked dead guy wrestling with a tarantula riding a giant rattlesnake.
Mysterious Coach Carvey lives in the USA and has never actually been seen by anyone. Investigate him further at:
www.carveyrunningtips.com
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