I run like a predator

Today's lunch run took me through Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.  It's a nice park with some history including a very old army post  circa 1850's and was a wood mill during WWI and a ship yard during WWII.  There are pictures on the land bridge that commemorate the location.  

The site has an airport with museum as well as a fort.  Today I was running past the fort doing my best to avoid goose poop on the path.  It was fresh, very fresh.  I looked further down the trail as I danced through the feces like a gazelle and was startled to see a huge gaggle of geese.  There were hundreds of our northern friends all over the trail and field. 

What was even more interesting was that they weren't moving for the people ahead of me.  I passed a walker who had this shocked look on her face, like she had just survived the gauntlet.  I watched ahead as a runner entered and geese slowly moved out of the way only to fill the void once she passed. 

I kept running, doing my best not to squish.  I was about 20 feet from the challenge (or should I say opportunity) when the gaggle's preservation instinct took over and nearly the whole gaggle took off at once.  They honked, did some sort of evasive flying and flew right over me (I did worry about poop, and yes, I like to type poop) and then they landed a long ways away and stared at me. 

It was a this point that I began to understand that I am no ordinary runner.  I am in fact, not even gazelle like.  I run like a predator.  I'm not sure whether I looked like a hawk, eagle, agile mountain lion, or vicious puma but I am certain that I was a terror to them.

No wonder people don't wave or nod when we pass while running, they are terrified of me.  No wonder people politely say, "looking good" during races, they are afraid that I will pounce if they aren't nice.

I see things more clearly after today's run.  I still wish I could say that I run like a gazelle but today I accepted my evolution from hunted to hunter.