Why I Talk to the Animals

After my post earlier this week regarding talking to deer (and other woodland creatures), I received quite a few responses.  One that made me laugh...hard...was Evolving Through Running who commented:

Has there ever been an occasion when you had to greet a deer as foe? Any particularly rough deer gangs near you? 

To which I felt the need to respond.  But before I do, I feel like I need to explain myself a little bit.  I am possibly the queen of irrational (and occasionally rational) fears.  I didn't fly until I was 22 because I was deathly afraid (we're talking mini-panic attack the night before my first flight complete with me leaving a will with my best friend that she could take all my cute clothes and shoes, except that all those cute clothes and shoes were coming with me on that trip and would undoubtably go down in the fiery plane crash along with me).  To this day, I cower when there is lightning outside.  Yes, I understand these are fairly rational fears.

Shall we move on to the less rational?  Ok then.  When I was in high school on the volleyball team, the Varsity players would have to rotate officiating the 'C' teams games (I think most places refer to this as the sophomore or freshman team....whatever is below the JV team...ANYWAY).  When I had to be the "up" official, meaning I was the person that stood on a little stoop attached to the volleyball pole looking down on the net and the players, I would be absolutely sure that for the first time in the history of the world, that thick cable cord that was wrapped and cranked ever so tightly to ensure that the net was nice and tight would snap, fling back at me, and slice open my face.  NO JOKE.  I hated being the up official.  I would always ask to swap whenever I was assigned.

The bike path that I run on is a fairly wooded area and runs right along a river.  I see a deer or a small family of deer probably once a week while I'm running along.  There was one incident where I came up on a deer in the dark where I frightened him (giant rack on this guy) and he frightened me, and I got to thinking.....  "Hmmmm if he were to start running at me, how fast would he have to go in order to knock me out?  Could he run at me hard enough to actually kill me?"

Sidenote:  Most of my irrational fears end in my maiming and/or untimely death and/or mutilation and disfigurement.

I then spent the rest of the run trying to do the equation.  If 120 lb. girl is running approx. 6 mph and encounters an average sized deer, at what velocity would the average sized deer need to be traveling to ensure dismemberment?

I thought I could pose the question to you all.  Surely some of you are math geniuses.  Perhaps you could google the average weight of a deer if that will help with some of the missing variables.  Maybe there's a "deer average speed when frightened" chart out there.  Maybe if there's enough interest, Mythbusters could do an episode.  All I know is that for my own peace of mind I need to know.  Somehow I don't think greeting the deer in calm and soothing voices is going to keep them from ramming me to death (although in the meantime I am going to hope amongst all hopes that that is indeed the case).

I ran 6 miles Tuesday morning in 57:50 for a pace of 9:39.

I ran 8 miles Wednesday night in 1:18:10 for a pace of 9:46.

.........Zero woodland creatures were encountered.