Deus ex machina

Years and years ago, I often ran workouts that I called “Rockers,” pushing hard for a half-mile or so to the top of the road we then lived on, which was a well-pitched hill, recovering by jogging slowly down the other side, then turning and pushing up again, back and forth. Hill-running for me was always a sort of magic potion, and this was a way to efficiently get a good bit of it in toward the end of a shortened training run. One day, I’d just gotten to the top and had down-shifted to a little jog, when a dog—an Afghan Hound of all things, a beast I’d never seen before—appeared from behind a neighbor’s house and headed toward me. I knew immediately that he meant business. Runners learn to tell. This guy wasn’t loping toward me to bark and get scratched. He was  hunting me down. I didn’t have time to feel scared. I’d read somewhere that the thing to do when you’re attacked by a dog is to jam your arm down its throat and choke it. So I’m standing there, in my chop top and short shorts, ready to make my stand and thinking to myself, “Oh, shit, this is going to be bad.”

When, all of a sudden (isn’t that a great phrase?), the door pops open on a pickup truck parked by the side of the road, a man with a tire iron jumps out, he bashes the dog, and I’m saved. This whole event takes less than 10 seconds. The adrenaline surge hits me, I realize how terrified I’d been, and I can barely stand up long enough to say thank you and stagger away home. Bless you, Lee King.