Wildlife Run

Joy here...While I've not been following the training plan meticulously laid out for me by Coach Woods, the fault is mine and not his.  And despite my seemingly lax approach to training (i.e. my non-existent approach), I am still doing my best to head out the door and go for little runs whenever I can.  My mantra these days seems to be that something is better than nothing.

The jungle where lurks hidden hazards.

And so as the late afternoon sun danced behind thick clouds that threatened but never delivered rain yesterday, I headed out for my little something-is-better-than-nothing run around my taman.

As I turn down one of the straights on my little neighbourhood loop the jungle rises up to my right, with green foliage blowing in the breeze and big banana leaves rustling like fans.

Wait!

That's not the rustling of the wind.  There's something in there!!!

I ran by the greenery and heard the distinct sound of something moving in that thick, lush jungle.  I kept running, immediately fearing the worst.  I know that dangerous animals can be found hereabouts, and as my heart rate rose, I envisioned being gored by a wild boar who would come tearing out of the trees to rip me to pieces.  I couldn't help but picture a king cobra rising tall amidst the trees, hood flanking fangs and flicking tongue.  I imagined escaped orang-utans who could have travelled through the uninterrupted jungle right into the city to rip me limb from limb.  In my mind's eye I saw a python springing all unseen to coil me and slowly crush my last breath from me.

A wild boar averages around 200Ibs and
could easily decide to gore me with his tusks.

A King Cobra grows to over 18ft and can stand
up 1/3 of its overall length, so, yeah, that would
be 6ft tall. If you're me, you'd be looking up
into the face of a snake. 

Orang-utans are native to Malaysia and possess 7 to 10
times the strength of the average human.

A python can grow to be one of the largest
snakes on the planet. Oh, and it is native to Malaysia.

So as I looped around to run past that stretch of rustling jungle, my heart was in my throat, my flight or fight reflex was honed (I chose flight), and I was sure that certain and dramatic death lay right around the corner for me.

Instead, up in the trees I saw the perfectly harmless and absolutely adorable grey leaf monkeys (much nicer tempered than the cheeky macaques who are intent on terrorizing me on the monkey loop), sitting up in the treetops.  I stopped to watch them for a moment, and then carried on my way, certain death avoided.

For the moment.

Just look at the cute, little, harmless fellow!

Over and out,

Joy

Run Stats:

Ran for a total of 22:15 for a distance of 3.55km with an average pace of 6:16min/km.