At the Garden of the Gods race in Colorado, a bear runs through it

Does a bear relieve himself in the woods?

Of course he does, and he apparently runs races in the woods, too.

During the Garden of the Gods 10 Mile run in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Sunday, a bear ambled out from the trees alongside the course and hot-footed it across the road, right in front of the runners.

One runner whose photos of the funny moment have gone viral told The Associated Press the bear looked as if it were trying to decide whether to make a run for it across the heavy foot traffic.

“Why did the bear cross the road? To scare the runners and make me lose precious time in the middle of a race!” Donald Sanborn wrote on his Facebook page Sunday.

Sanborn told the AP he was about 5 miles into the race when he saw the bear. The photos he posted to Facebook quickly went viral.

“I saw him from the other side!” commented one runner. “I had never seen a bear in real life before. I think he just wanted to run with us.”

And then the jokes and the bear puns poured in, with Sanborn joking to one commenter that “we could go on like this for a week, but I’m beary tired ...”

Maybe, one Facebook commenter suggested, bears aren’t such a bad idea at a race.

This story was originally published June 12, 2017 at 10:05 AM with the headline "At the Garden of the Gods race in Colorado, a bear runs through it."