Well I'm used to runs being interrupted and/or rerouted by falls, scary dogs, bulls, even once the road being closed due to a murder having been committed, but a new one cropped up today.
Bloke got angry that I no look flipped him off (bad choice as it turned out) after he honked his horn at me (illegally?) when I crossed the road in front of him at a T-junction he was approaching (technically my right of way anyway), not causing him to slow down at all but presumably startling him a bit. Then he followed me, pulled over and started yelling at me, I told him to fuck off (possibly another bad choice) and he sped off in the direction I was heading saying something inaudible about up the road. Considered changing my route but thought nah it'll be alright (another bad choice). But then I saw him crossing the road again to corner me. Probably could have done a 180 at that point and outrun him with ease if he had chased me but I didn't (probably another bad choice).
I thought I was a flight guy, I'm definitely not a fight guy.
So then he wants to fight me. No thanks. Why? Don't see what it would achieve. Don't fancy my chances against a heavier, younger guy (with one of those orange Rangers shirts on). I'd better talk him down. I'm nine stone something. Of course I don't want a fight. You'd beat the shit out of me. But I'd intimidated him apparently. And contrary to my claim that his car couldn't have hit me even if he had floored it, he reckoned I was severely underestimating his Megane RS. And I waa a baldy ****** who looked like a monk. Thanks, I was aware of that. And if the car had had his daughter in it at the time he would have happily mown me down, reversed back over my head and then stabbed me for good measure so it was a good job he didn't have his daughter (or his knife presumably). After a couple of half hearted lunges to try to provoke me he pulled something out of his pocket and I backed off warily. Then he seemed to think I was bothered by his blunt. Nope, you just suggested you'd like to stab me, was worried it was a knife. Why was I laughing at him? I wasn't, though it all seemed a bit surreal, so perhaps I was failing in my attempts to keep my face as neutral as possible (to look calm and not scared) and smirking slightly (autism means not much clue what face I'm pulling so I'm very much a camera off guy). Eventually he seemed to realise that beating me up was probably not the best move for him and let me carry on with my run. This wasn't because of the police car driven by a female officer which he hadn't seen pass behind him. She had clocked us, looked suspiciously, then kept driving anyway.
Fortunately I'd stopped my watch when he blocked me off and was able to restart it. The adrenalin seemed to make for a much stronger than expected run and I was only ten minutes into the 110 minute run so the stoppage didn't render it an incomparable effort to previous ones on that route (which I'd been rather too keen to avoid changing on the hoof).
