Running with the Bulls

Okay, so it wasn't so much bulls as cows. Which made the whole thing much more funny and a lot less terrifying than I would imagine a herd of bulls would be.

Would you like to hear the story now? Yes? Okay. So, I jog. After a fashion, anyway. I manage about three tortuously slow miles three days a week. One of the reasons I'm so slow is that the road I run on goes up from the lake in a very vertical manner. This road is a gravel road near my house with very little traffic, which is fantastic, because I really don't need an audience to my suffering. Except yesterday, I did have an audience. Of the bovine variety.

See, one of the farmers on the road had moved a herd of about 40 cows into a pasture right next to the road to graze. They were all just hanging out in the corner closest to the road when I came wheezing by. This was the first time I had seen them there, and I thought it only polite to say good morning. They were all staring at me--I couldn't just run on by. I don't know if it was the fact that I spoke to them, or the fact that I was a person and they're used to people bearing corn, or the fact that I was moving at a faster pace than people normally do around them, but they all watched me approach and then they started to run with me. On their side of the fence, obviously. It was hilarious. The whole herd was just loping along with me until we reached the end of their pasture.

I'm happy to say that I was able to keep ahead of the pack. Then they crowded up against the fence and watched me until I got to my turn-around point shortly thereafter. But they didn't run back with me on my return. I guess they had decided I wasn't bearing corn after all, so what was the point in running?

That totally made my morning, though. Definitely something I never got to experience running in the city. Me and the cows, lumbering along. I imagine I look about as graceful as them when I run, so it seemed only appropriate.