When Collins Kibet, a senior All-American 800-meter runner at the University of Arizona, heard someone bolt out of the bathroom of his cross-county team’s fifth-floor hotel room in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, he gave chase.

Kibet, whose 800-meter PR is 1:46.87, sprinted down five flights of stairs and out a side door of the hotel, where, according to the police report, a man holding a pocket-knife and carrying an Arizona cross country backpack and travel bag confronted him.

“He tried to move backward and said to me, ‘I have a knife,’” Kibet told Runner’s World by phone three days after the incident. “Then he started running away.”

It was not a great idea.

On Saturday, September 24, Kibet and his six teammates combined to place 24th at the Roy Griak Invitational, an 8K on the University of Minnesota’s golf course.

The next morning, they finished a 14-mile long run, then dropped their bags off in the same hotel room. Their coach, Tim Riley, and five runners went to breakfast at a restaurant across the street. Kibet, running late, was the last person to store his bags in the room, at which point he came across the alleged thief.

The breakfasting runners sat next to a window with a view of the hotel. They spotted Kibet arguing with the man on the sidewalk, and at once, sprinted out the door.

That is how 48-year-old Darren Clinton of Minneapolis found himself being chased by a Division I cross-country team just after noon on September 25.

“He was terrified. He was so scared. He knew he was caught and just wanted to get away,” Arizona junior Patrick Leary told Runner’s World. The team pursued Clinton down an alley blockaded by a chain-link fence at the end.

According to the police report, Clinton dropped the bags and started emptying his pockets. He gave the team his own wallet, which had his social security card inside.

As a teammate called the police, Clinton climbed the fence. Bailey Roth, a junior on the team, followed Clinton down an on-ramp next to a highway. A police cruiser spotted the commotion and joined the pursuit.

“I chased him for about three-quarters of a mile in total,” Roth said. The police arrested Clinton next to the highway, reclaiming one teammate’s wallet and Roth’s watch.

“We were pretty hyped to be honest,” Roth told Runner’s World. “We didn’t have a great race, and we have been working on our team dynamic. Afterward I told them, ‘Hey guys, our spirit is back.’”

Clinton has been charged with second-degree burglary. The team recovered all of its belongings.

A spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department told Runner’s World in an email, “It is a great lesson. Never steal from a long distance track runner… You will be caught.”

Kit Fox Special Projects Editor Kit has been a health, fitness, and running journalist for the past five years.

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