Not Another Running Story

Today I was super excited to finish up work early and go for a run, but I was foiled before I really began... by kangaroos. You know that group that's been featured in oh-so-many run stories? Well, today there were more of them. Now, most of the kangaroos I've seen around here have been somewhere between two and four feet tall, most around about three feet-- cute and cuddly, right? Not so with this crowd. There were three or four large males, bigger than me in every dimension and quite muscular, looking like regular thugs. One of them stood in the middle of the path and wouldn't budge, and I certainly didn't want to tell it to move. Then I looked up on the hill to my left, and saw that two more were having a little disagreement. 

At first they continued the pretense of grazing, getting more and more aggressively in each other's faces-- think kids jostling in the back seat, "I'm not in your space, you're in my space!" Then came the growling. If you think rabbit growls are impressive, that's nothing. This was a deep, throaty noise that was so loud it sounded like they were right next to me (I had by then retreated quite a bit).

Then... one of them stood up. All the way. Leaned back on his tail, using it like a third leg. And growled some more.

At this point I was really torn-- on the one hand I really wanted to see a kangaroo fight, but on the other hand I was suddenly feeling very exposed, and quite aware that a kangaroo could outrun me without breaking a sweat. And since they were already in a very bad temper and I really didn't want to get mauled for being in their way, I decided to call it quits and I ran back to my place.

I did actually poke around a bit to see if there was a good detour, but I kept coming up against the kangaroos again. Since I'd wasted so much time watching them to begin with, sunset was coming up in half an hour and I didn't want to get lost in the dark, so I very sadly gave up on my run for today. All because of a couple of big, scary kangaroos. :(