I have no idea of the number of miles, kilometres, minutes and hours I’ve spent running or walking in my 50+ years. Certainly in the thousands, likely in the tens- or hundreds-of-thousands.
But the other day, after all that time pounding the pavement, I experienced a ‘running first’.
As I was in the middle of a failed attempt to run 7k as part of my half-marathon training, I approached a tree. Nothing special there.
I was pretty focused on the road ahead, but all of a sudden out of the top of my vision I saw a bird burst out of the tree at a pretty steep angle. In an instant, I thought ‘wow, that’s an aggressive takeoff’, and then immediately had a second thought ‘wait, what’s it dropping?’.
Thankfully it wasn’t the contents of its dinner moving through its system.
I quickly moved my head and essentially ran directly underneath this pinecone-shaped-whatever-it-was. Then in my next stride, I turned around to find that — oh, that’s no pinecone — that’s a dead bird!
Although my daughter claims a bird dropping dead in front of you is a sign of a new beginning, I’m not convinced. My run — that had been going well — turned to crap shortly after. But, on the bright side – I guess I should be glad it didn’t impale me in the head!
I have no idea what transpired in that tree, but I do know that only one feathered friend survived. And I’m happy that my ‘running first’ wasn’t getting pooped on or attacked by a dead bird, but instead a near-miss. Still pretty weird though.