Woman finds human head on the roadside during morning run

There may be times when one could use an excuse to interrupt that health-giving daily workout – but never this kind of excuse.

A Florida woman came across a human head by the side of a road in St. Petersburg while out on a morning run yesterday.

The jogger called 911 around 7 a.m. Tuesday to report the gruesome discovery, the St. Petersburg Police Department said in a statement.

The head was found in a grassy area between the sidewalk and the edge of 38th Avenue S, right near an overpass for Interstate 275, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

Police said the head was too decomposed to immediately determine the deceased’s race and gender and that other local residents had probably passed by it without even realizing what it was.

“A lot of people might have thought it was just an animal but she perceived it really did look like a human,” police department spokeswoman Yolanda Fernandez told the news outlet.

Homicide detectives are now combing the area for more remains or potential clues while the head is turned over to the Medical Examiner’s office for closer examination, Fernandez said.

It’s not yet clear how long the head had resided in its finding place.

The jogger reportedly told police she didn’t think it was there when she passed by the same spot during a run on Sunday. She didn’t jog through the area on Monday.