"Now there's the trick right? Knowing which it is. I figure that my throat is more important to me than testing the owner's theory and risking being on the business end of a statistic."
Regardless if it wants to hurt you or not, running is a bad idea.
Most dogs are faster than you, and the bigger ones don't even have to use teeth to take you down, trust me. If it is aggressive, you're screwed. If its not, you take a big chance of -making- it aggressive by running.