I love to run. My earliest running memory was from when I was about 5 years old. The golf course in the little town I grew up in had a giant hill off of the first hole. I remember running down this when my Dad was golfing. It was so steep that once you started running you could not stop. I found this exhilarating.
This morning I was preg checking cows at a dairy. My vet tech Larry Oster was with me. He does not love to run. This may be because he's shorter and rounder than I am. The pen I was in, is built on a hill. The owner of the dairy had been kind enough to clean the pens before we got there. All I could see in the whole pen were two fresh cow pies.
We were done with the pen except for one cow. Larry who was reading numbers in front for me, came into the pen to see if we could walk the one remaining cow to the corner so I could check her.
We were just about to the corner when she decided that she didn't want to be checked today. She turned, looked at the two of us, and decided that Larry would be easier to go through than me. She blew snot covering him from head to toe, and the chase was on!
I was shocked at how fast the little guy could run. He may not like it, but he can do it given the proper motivation. I think the cow was also shocked at how fast he could move, she stopped after a couple steps.
I'd never really noticed how steep a hill we were on before, but I think given the speed with which Larry started, and the weight of his belly pulling him down the hill, that he too was feeling the exhilaration of running so fast that you're unable to stop.
That's when his foot hit one of the two fresh piles of manure in the pen, this is when he started to slide. He now looked like an Olympic skier on the downhill course who has lost one ski. I thought for a second that he might recover and get that second ski back on the ground, when he started to roll. Head over hills he went. I think he did three complete somersaults before coming to a rest at the bottom of the hill.
When he rolled over I could see where he had landed. In the one other pile of fresh manure in the pen. One whole side of him was now green. I would have liked to have helped him back to his feet, but given his antics on the hill. Both the cow that had started the chase and I were both doubled over in laughter.
I think that I've found something I love as much as running. Watching others run.