There were a few double-takes, but the joggers and cyclists getting some fresh air by the lake Sunday were too polite — or too slow — to snap a photo. In hindsight, they may not have believed their eyes.

But it truly was LeBron James, the 6-foot-8 Cleveland Cavaliers forward and four-time NBA MVP, leading a pack of joggers in his fluorescent tank top for an out-and-back run from Princes’ Gate to Coronation Park and west along the Martin Goodman trail by the waterfront.

After the wild speculation and then bombshell confirmation of his return to Cleveland from the Miami Heat, it’s hard to imagine James doing anything in secret. But until he pulled up in a black SUV at 2 p.m., it was all very hush-hush.

Anna Bediones, 25, is more of a fan of basketball than running. She follows the NBA closely, plays in two Toronto-area co-ed leagues and blogs about sports. But she’s a friend of a friend of the run’s organizer and got talked into joining with her boyfriend Philip Aglipay.

“The black Escalade pulls up and LeBron steps out the door. Everyone was just in awe,” she said. “I obviously recognized him right away. It was pretty surreal.”

She ran in James’ group, which ran a 7.59-minute mile according to an app that one of the runners had. At Molson Amphitheatre he doubled back, she said, and finished the 2.11-mile run (3.4 kilometres) with the slower group and gave them high-fives at the end.

“I’m sure he didn’t want to outshine anybody. Everybody knows he’s a world-class athlete, so in the beginning he hung back at the end of the pack,” Bediones said.

Bediones’ blog about her run

PHOTOS FROM THE RUN

James was in town for the weekend Caribbean carnival and Drake’s OVO Fest.

Cleveland resident Stephan Williams, 29, also known as DJ Steph Floss, is a high school friend of James’ agent Rich Paul, and the organizer of the excursion.

“I didn’t want to tell anybody he was coming. I didn’t want it to be unnatural. I wanted people who really wanted to run to be a part of it,” Williams said.

“If they were just coming to see LeBron it would have been a whole big mess with too many unnecessary people around with media and photography.”

Williams started running this spring and got the bug, so he now organizes a weekly group run in Cleveland called Run With The Winners, an idea he brought to Toronto on the carnival weekend for the first time.

Run with the winners indeed: the group of over 20 people gathered by friends, and friends of friends, of Williams and James ran 3.4 km with the best player in the NBA.

James showed up with a small entourage including Tristan Thompson, the first-round pick from Brampton, Ont., who also plays for Cleveland.

Many were friends, but others were too polite, or too star struck, to ask for an autograph.

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“Even though I understand how big LeBron is and how he’s maybe pop culture’s biggest star at this point, people didn’t act weird,” Williams said.

“I don’t know how they felt inside but they didn’t act like superfans. That was amazing, and it helped out with the run.”

After a group stretch led by James (“You don’t wanna start cramping,” he said, jokingly referring to the infamous NBA Finals game in June when he had to leave because of cramps), he and the others returned to their posh hotel for lunch.

Bediones headed to OVO Fest to see American hip hop group Outkast. What was the more memorable experience?

“Meeting LeBron. Running with LeBron was the best part.”

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