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Cat Bites Runner
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Mid-week, and it's evening. Despite the cold and the wind I'm outside, running along the local London streets quite happily, notching up another 6 miles on the marathon prep schedule...
...when an odd thing happens.
I'm running along a residential street when I feel a tug and a scratch around my ankles. For some reason, perhaps primeval instinct (!) I keep running and look back to see a cat, bristling with anger, hissing at me.
"I've just been attacked by a cat," I muse, then begin to wonder if I didn't just imagine it all.
So the following evening I sneak out for an extra three miler, and just to test my resolve I run past the same house. Whereupon the cat pounces again! This time it tries to bite me through the shoe!
Much as I find the idea of being savaged by a tabby amusing, I wondered if any other runners have been chased by cats while on their training runs? The really weird part of it is that in over 10 years of running I've never once been chased by the runner's traditional adversary: the dog.
...when an odd thing happens.
I'm running along a residential street when I feel a tug and a scratch around my ankles. For some reason, perhaps primeval instinct (!) I keep running and look back to see a cat, bristling with anger, hissing at me.
"I've just been attacked by a cat," I muse, then begin to wonder if I didn't just imagine it all.
So the following evening I sneak out for an extra three miler, and just to test my resolve I run past the same house. Whereupon the cat pounces again! This time it tries to bite me through the shoe!
Much as I find the idea of being savaged by a tabby amusing, I wondered if any other runners have been chased by cats while on their training runs? The really weird part of it is that in over 10 years of running I've never once been chased by the runner's traditional adversary: the dog.
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Comments
I actually clicked this thread as I misread it CAR bites runner: now that really would be wierd!
Or maybe your ankles smell of fish?
I once had to defend one of my own from this menacing creature, using a broom. He locked all four sets of claws onto the broom and I was able to lift him into the air "cat on a stick" style.
He is a truly dark character who roams the streets looking for victims.
Perhaps you met him.
If you stood on his rug, sat on his chair, or crossed his doorstep, Arthur would have you. Usually he went for the achilles, but he wasn't actually fussy.
James reckoned it was because, as a kitten, Arthur had been obliged to walk across a plate glass table and had never actually recovered from the trauma of not falling through thin air.
I reckon, onemoremile, that you've met once of Arthur's descendants, and that you dared step on his bit of pavement . . .
I'm more inclined to think the cat's a psycho.
Just finished polishing my Dr Martens for that 12 miler tomorrow....come on tabby, if you think you're hard enough!
I have a hypothesis that it's attracted to my laces.
I will test this theory out on my midweek runs (which I do after dark). If you don't hear from me by Wednesday send a search party. I may have been mauled by this feline and dragged up the nearest tree.
Steady's cat btw.