The days have warmed up quiet a bit here in California, which has gotten me out and running again, it's been a long time since I've run, so I'm slowly getting back into it and enjoying the aches and pains that come with it. I was out running on Friday when I remembered something that happened to me a few years ago on one of my runs.
I was running at a long distance track, doing a 3 mile run on a Saturday. It was pretty uneventful, noting much going on just ground squirrels running around, red tail hawks soaring over head looking for a meal. I was just running along, when I saw a lady walking her three dogs, she was about a mile ahead of me, as I got closer to where she was I noticed she had one dog on a leash and the two others were loose, they were just playing and running.
This is a big open area track, so people normally let their dogs off the leash and let them run and burn off some energy, so it was not something out of the ordinary.
But the one thing that I noticed was how one of the dogs looked so unusual. I wear eye glasses, but when I run, I don't wear them, just sunglasses, my eyesight is not that bad, but I could not make out what kind of dog it was.
Well when I got to the end of the run trail, the lady was there at the water fountain getting a drink. I said Hello and asked her what kind of dog that was she had, the one playing with the black and white dog, she laughed and said.......lol....."that is not my dog, it's a coyote".
She said it just came out of nowhere and started to play with her dog. As we were standing there talking, her black and white dog came up to her as she was ready to leave. The coyote came towards us as well, but stayed back and just looked at us from a distance, then trotted off somewhere.
Well about a week later, I was on the same track, just started my run, I was about a 1/4 mile in when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I looked over my right shoulder and lo and behold, there was the coyote trotting along next to me.
It was about 6-7 feet away, just keeping pace with me. I did not panic, that would probably have been the worst thing to do. I kept my cool and just ran like there was "nothing wrong with this picture"......lol. It did not get closer to me or make an aggressive moves or what not.
It seemed like it just wanted to play, it looked young, but it was big. He stayed with me for about another half mile then it took off into a farm field nearby. I don't know if it was lost or hungry or just wanted some attention, but I will never forget that moment.
It was pretty cool to experience that. We are surrounded by farm fields and lots of open land out here, so there are coyotes everywhere, so it's not unusual to see them. But to see one that close was out of the ordinary. I saw it a few more times after that, but not have another close encounter like I did that day. I don't know whatever happened to that coyote, but hopefully it is still alive and enjoying it's life.
