When Animals Attack

I have to confess, I have a very strange fear of being attacked by a deer or a wild turkey while in the woods. I have visions of a role reversal with a deer hunting me. Chasing me down in vengeance for his cousins taken out by man. I don't know. Maybe its because they're so big and not behind bars or thick glass. Maybe because I have a vivid imagination. Maybe because it would be something that would happen to me. Yesterday, I came face to face with my fear. Not once, but twice.
 


Pretty much how I see it but with me instead of a prepubescent boy with a trucker hat.

I planned to do my trail loop 3 times, so 9.9 miles with 3 sets of 30 burpees per loop. I woke at 6am, scarfed down a sweet potato, and hit the road. The sun was just starting to rise. (I have to figure out how I'm going to do this once the days start getting even shorter and the sun rising later). I had a short, extremely aggravating delay, since my iTunes decided to wipe out my playlist the other day when I plugged my iPod into my computer. So after 10 minutes of rebuilding it, I hit the trail. About 10 minutes into my run, there it was. I stopped, like a deer in headlights. Bad Joke. Waited. And it moved on. Okay. Tip toe past the spot and then some. Gather myself. Assure myself it won't come rampaging out the woods to pummel me to death. Keep on running. Coming up the big back hill, I saw a Momma Raccoon and two very chunky babies on the trail headed home after an evening of snacking in the park trash cans. This too, freaked me out. Again, rabid animals attacking me. I let them carry on  with their business and then continued on my run.

Lap two: Coming up the big back hill, low and behold another freaking deer. I stood and waited for her to move on, except this one was a bit more ballsy. I clapped, stomped, cussed, begged, and the damn thing wouldn't move. Then, it had the nerve to start coming towards me. It was at this exact moment I decided I will give hunting a whirl. I love deer chili. Argghhh.... This gal won the stand off. I back tracked and took a trail out of the woods and went around.

Lap two was my final lap. Between my MIA playlist and run in's with animals, I ran out of time for a third lap. On my way into work, I called Jon to tell him about my work out and animal encounters. I told him I only ran 6.6 miles and did 180 burpees. Only. I used the word 'only' to describe 6.6 miles. That is how far I've come.