I prefer riding under helicopters while their rotors are still going. Its when they stop when things get tricky. The best thing is to always train by a cliff with the opportunity to just dip off if any helicopter rotors stop above you. That way, you can make a quick exit. Tricky part about that is you have to wear a parachute as well. Unfortunately the bike typically gets badly damaged on cliff exits with a parachute, so wear a Go Pro to get lots of Inst volume and street cred from the ridiculousness of the exit to get yourself a new top of the line P5 like you've always dreamed about.

---

https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

Someone pulled a gun on me during a run once

Chicago is an awful place to live

---

Gone with the wind

Instagram: palmtreestriathlon

A turtle ran over by a car and split in half. Armadillos crossing, fish out of the water during the storm and dead on the ground. Lots of animal related sightings in Texas.

My last appearance was on page 9, I think. Besides Flasher Girl, Bowling Ball Girl, and the Bear Man . . .

• In the 2015 Dirty Kanza 200 (popularly known as "Muddy Kanza" that year), there was an extended stretch of impassible mud starting about 10 miles into the race. At that point, everyone picked up their bikes and did their best to walk up in the fence row -- a foot or two up off the road. A mile and a half into that, I decided the road might be firm enough to walk in. (Keep in mind that I'm walking in a pack of probably 500 riders all doing the same thing.) I step down from the fence row, put my bike down, and hear a funny hiss/rattling kind of sound. I look just beyond the bottom bracket of my bike to see a rattlesnake coiled, rattling his/her rattle, and apparently eager to strike. Less than a foot the other side of my bike. I started walking and passed a warning back to riders/walkers behind. That's the first and last time I've heard the cyclist warning "rattlesnake!"
• In late August a few years back, I took a solo training ride down Fults Cove in Middle Tennessee. It's a reasonably remote area with houses about every quarter mile or so and none of them very close to the road. As I round a corner, I see a woman on a riding mower, up near the road, mowing her lawn topless. She's got her shirt in her lap, but she never flinches or covers up or reacts. I wave and she waves back, but otherwise goes about her business. In fact, she acts as if she doesn't know she's topless. It wasn't an "I'm topless and I don't care" reaction. There was no reaction. (Maybe she forgot that she took her shirt off?)
  

Mallorca 70.3 - riding back into Alcudia at about 75-80km you pass through a marshy area. As I was being overtaken by one girl we both suddenly saw an obstruction in the road - it was a tortoise to which the girl had make a sharp swerve to avoid it, with both of us shouting to each other "did you see that!". I assumed it was just an escaped pet but it turns out Mallorca does have a few native species. This one was obviously just taking advantage of the closed roads.

There's a farm at the end of my road that sets up middle age camps (think Game of Thrones). Because it's a remote area with next to no sign posts, they had someone in full viking dress stood on the side of the road to aid visitors. So here's me, out for run saying "morning" to someone who's just stepped out of Skyrim...

London Marathon 2018 - overtook a guy who looked like Jesus, was dressed like Jesus, barefoot like Jesus, and carrying a fairly large cross like Jesus...

Maybe it was Jesus...I've heard he's already come back once....

Last year I was climbing a hill about 10 miles out of town and there was a snapping turtle in the road almost at the crest of a hill. I came back a little while later and it was still in the road. I was raised with a healthy respect for what a snapping turtle can do but I also have a love for all animals.

Anyway I knew that sooner or later someone was going to come over the crest of that hill and smash that turtle. I decided I would use my front tire to push him of the road. I kept pushing him but he would keep turning around and ending up back in the road. He finally whipped around and took a big chunk out the sidewall of my front tire. Luckily did not get to the tube.

Anyway I gave up after that and road home hoping that he found his way off the road and that I did not get a flat. Road the same route the next day and he was not there smashed so I guess he got off the road safely. Changed that tire to a wheel I use on the front on the indoor trainer and still remember that turtle every time I look down at the big chunk hanging off the side of that tire.

Just yesterday I was out on a run, across the street I hear brake squealing. I look across the street there is a shabby looking wanna-be fast and furious car. Some old dude gets out of the car in a hurry then a younger passenger gets out ripping off this tee shirt, they begin throwing punches.

---

All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

I worked on a naval base that had a 4-mile long chip trail running from the back gate to the Officer's Club. I was out for my run at lunch one day and passed a woman on the trail dressed in spike heels, a micro-mini dress and a tube top. She was walking in the direction of the O-Club. I went on about another mile and turned around where I caught up to her again. When I caught up I could see that both butt cheeks were hanging out the bottom of her dress. after I passed her, wouldn't you know, my shoe came untied and I had to stop to retie it. How she got on base and what she was doing, I have no clue.

On a trail race around a local lake, I was literally run over by a deer. I had a rug burn on my elbow from where it hit me. On that same trail, the guy in front of me nearly stepped right on a coiled-up Cottonmouth.

On a local bike trail, I came up behind a young lady roller-blading. Daisy Duke cut-off jeans showing butt cheeks out the bottom and a hot pink thong "whale tail" on top. Well, it was time for my cool-down anyway.

Not on the bike or run, but a swim. My local triathlon club was practicing swimming at a local pier. Anchored out about 50 yards was a sailboat with a couple having sex in the cockpit reverse cow-girl style. They obviously saw us gawking at them and appeared to enjoy giving us a show.

Sounds like our mascot

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

This morning: 8' kiddie pool in the middle of the road, just on the down side of the railroad crossing

Not an inflatable one either; we're talking a hard plastic one, you might fill with ice at a tailgate

I pulled it off to the side, of course, because - in the fucking dark at 6AM - someone could've easily crested the RR Xing without seeing it and WHAM!!!

KInda like that boulder once before

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I cycled past Princes William & Harry out shooting on a local estate last year, said good morning and they both said good morning back, their bodyguards were pretty relaxed about it, well they would be, I had a bicycle in my hands and they had 12 bore shotguns.

An al fresco porno shoot several years back on a long run, I didn't hang about to watch the ending.

The Millenium Falcon, The Last Jedi was being filmed on my regular run route.

Not on the bike or the run but 2 weeks ago at a pre IM race breakfast in a Cascais hotel several people turned up to eat their breakfasts in wetsuits, zipped up and ready to rumble, one dork even had his goggles on his head. Nothing to see here, move along.

Not really "weird," but merely an observation

There is a place on my running route - a couple of them actually, on various routes - where I am far enough away from houses, streetlights, and other ambient light sources, that the road and the woods surrounding me are completely black. Through the gaps in the trees, I can see more stars more clearly than anywhere else nearby

I'm far enough away from the main roads that it's fairly silent [as long as the morning NJ Transit train has come & gone]

When it is especially cold - like this morning, for instance - It almost feels like what floating in space must be like

****

Sorry for tripping out on you a little bit there; just wanted to share

Carry on

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

For the past six months or so, he was down to just a single plain white one; today I noticed that a black one has showed up

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

The last couple of days: Nothing

And that’s the weird part

Usually, if I were to go for a run at 9am or so, there would be school buses, moms & dads waiting for them at the corners, contractors in their trucks

Nope

Ten o’clock in the morning on Thursday looked like 7am Saturday... only the dog-walkers and one senior citizen were out

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

That’s encouraging actually. I’ve seen a significant uptick in foot traffic. I’ve struggled with “my part” in this whole thing because my normal vacant running routes now put me in more contact than I would have otherwise.

That said, I can’t bear the thought of running treadmill exclusively. I’ve tried to switch to “odd” workout hours - like 8-10pm. Not like I have work to get up for...

I’m finishing the last half mile or so of a local 5k in Weatherford TX.
I hear all this crashing and noise to my right... and a pony comes galloping onto the road. Probably from some small farm that had been grandfathered into the city limits. And of course it’s black, because ponies are the devils horse.
I think I tried to yell “Pony!” but was too busy laughing/ hyperventilating to get anything out. Just running with a pony, you know, cuz that’s normal during a race.

Oh and since I’ve moved to Durango, I saw a couch on a dirt road on Missionary Ridge. It was placed on a turn on the road, overlooking the valley below & mountains. I ran up the road, no couch. Turned around and when I came by about 20 minutes later, there’s a couch. I think it was there for almost 2 weeks. I kept running that road just to check on the couch. Really wanted to sit on it, but, fleas, bedbugs... eww. Nice spot for it, I guess?

Running at lunch time in Primrose Hill Park saw a circle of Druid in white hoods and robes

Let's see, riding up the Platte river trail toward Denver I saw a guy riding a unicycle. Another time I saw a guy riding a penny farthing. Oh and three cars in the river after an ice storm.

---

See your bike fit. https://bikefitr.appspot.com/

Since it was in the 70s here in NJ yesterday, I went for a ride. I came across a house with an SUV backed into the driveway, with the rear hatch open. There was a man sitting in a folding chair behind the SUV, and another man standing next to him...giving him a haircut. Both men had surgical masks on.

Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

There is now a silver with red top in the family as well

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA0DciXnT9T/

A medical training dummy of some sort, I hope

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I was out running in the country with my 2 sons - both high school cross country runners. A car rounds the corner in front of us, tires squealing and kicking up gravel. I give him a "wtf?" look as he speeds past us in the opposite direction. He pulled over to the side of the road just ahead of us. I told my boys "keep running". I looked back over my shoulder and see him getting out of the car. When I glanced back a second time, I saw him pulling a shotgun from the trunk. Then I told my sons - run full speed - he's got a gun! We started sprinting as fast as we could in the opposite direction. We heard him fire the gun, but I didn't know what he was doing. Then a police car came around the same corner in pursuit. The officer must not have known the perp was armed because the officer approached him directly by himself. We asked a passerby if we could hide behind his truck. So my boys and I watched the officer arrest the man and put him in the back of the squad car. My sons and I gave the police an oral testimony of what we saw. Too much action for me, but my sons thought it was pretty awesome. The officer said that he was watching the perp, and he got nervous and fled. Apparently he had a loaded weapon in the trunk that he felt he needed to discharge instead of just unload. Nonetheless, it got my heart rate up in way that I was not looking for.

Holy shit!!!

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

+1 to this