For about the past two years a neighbor of mine, Nancy, and I have run together early in the mornings. This has been a great blessing since it's hard to find time to get exercise in once the kids are awake. I enjoy her company and appreciate her willingness to change the pace according to my needs. She ran with me when I was pregnant, when I was just coming back to running , and everything in between. Even though she is a much faster and a more accomplished runner, she always slows down for me and never complains. I look forward to our 5:30 a.m. "therapy sessions" quite a bit.
It is still pitch dark when we run. As we were finishing up today we ran by a house in which two large dogs came running out of the yard and started running towards us barking and snarling. We stopped and tried to calm them down but they were feeding off of each other and getting quite worked up. It seemed they were going to attack us at any second. Nancy decided to use her pepper spray that she always keeps in her hand when we run. That seemed more effective than the waterbottle I had which is the only thing I keep in my hand. They ran off and we realized we both had shaky hands and arms. We started running again and discussed how she had never had to use the pepperspray in all her years of running, and we started listing all the animals we have seen while we have been running together. We listed deer, racoon, rabbits, possom, and fox.
Literally, while I was listing these animals, I looked out of the corner and my eye and (no lie, I promise) a wild pig comes running out of the bushes. He ran right towards us, didn't attack us but kept following after us no matter what we did. Nancy put a little mist of pepperspray between us and the pig and he finally left. Mind you this is no pink Wilbur looking pig. It was a big hairy, blackish gray thing that looks like you would see it in the swamp pit in Princess Bride. Since I'll be moving soon it was our last run, and one I'll never forget.
Our new joke is "watch out, Nancy's got pepperspray and she knows how to use it". I'm glad she's so prepared.
Guess what I'm asking for for mother's day.
2 comments:
wow - quite the encounters with wildlife on a run - I have seen some jack rabbits and road runners on my (short) runs around our neighborhood but nothing like you see...no attack dogs either! Way to go, ladies.
Thank you for giving me another reason not to run!
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