This will go down as one of my weirdest runs ever. Valerie and I spent last night and this morning in Asheville for a mini-weekend with some hiking. That left me with a night run when we got back to Durham.
I ran through campus on a loop I've run hundreds of times before. While heading back along Campus Drive, I suddenly and unexpectedly felt something grab my hair from behind and tearing at my scalp. My initial thought was, "Crap--I'm getting mugged."
I turned around in horror to see instead an enormous owl hovering above my shoulders, flapping its wings in a deathly silent attack. I yelled "HOLY SHIT" (what else does one say when being attacked by a large bird of prey?), but miraculously didn't break stride and scrambled down the dimly lit street with bird in hot pursuit. The owl looked down on me with this really intense, piercing gaze, readying for another pass, so I started hollering all kinds of nonsense at it and waving my arms. Fortunately, between all of the hollering and hauling butt down the sidewalk, that was enough to get it to fly back into its roost. In that sense, I won the "race."
My best guess is that this was a barred owl, but I'm not sure. It felt like I was out there for an eternity running away from this angry bird, but this all transpired in about 10 seconds. It was weird enough that I spent the rest of my run trying to convince myself that all of it had literally just happened. These are things that are supposed to happen in Hitchcock movies, not in real life. I ran home feeling very real fear, hauling ass through downtown and looking over my shoulder.
When I got home, I babbled in disbelief to Valerie, who inspected my head for damage (none to report, thankfully). I reported the menace to Duke's campus police and commenced a slow draw-down from an intense half hour of freaking-the-fuck-out.
Believe it or not, this exact same thing happened a couple of years ago to my old Durham training partner Liam, and I guess there's some other precedence for it locally. I've come across rattlesnakes, cars, pit bulls, and a lot of other typical running hazards that we all deal with at some point, but this was unquestionably the scariest moment I've ever had running.
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| Good lord, look at those talons. Those things were in my scalp. |
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