When I was in growing up, I spent a lot of time in the ditch behind my house.  I saw a lot of snakes and generally am not too afraid of them.  In high school, I actually had a 5 foot king snake as a pet.  My mom and dad loved that one!

Since I have been running and riding in the past few years, I have seen a lot of dead snakes in the road.  Some little….some huge….some harmless ones…..some poisonous.  But they had one common trait that didn’t really bother me.  They were dead.  And then there was last night.

I was out for my long run of 14.5 miles and was zoned out listening to the Zen and the Art of Triathlon Podcast.  My legs were a little fatigued from the bike ride Saturday, so I was still trying to work out the kinks.  As I was running down the road by the airport, there was a lot of storm debris in the ditch and roadside.  And on the edge of the asphalt was something that I was not expecting…….a 3 to 4 foot cottonmouth!

I was in mid step almost directly above it when it reared back and flashed its pearly whites.  My adrenal gland exploded sending two gallons of adrenaline directly to my heart propelling me into a vertical leap of about 81 inches (6 feet 9 inches for the unit conversion challenged).  And then it struck.  Fortunately for me, it went after my trailing leg which was now rapidly climbing to a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet.  And with it attacking towards my rear leg, it put me going one way and it another.

I landed, slowed down a bit from my new 4 minute mile pace and attempted to settle my heart rate back down from a peak of 378 beats per minute.  I know that is probably a Guinness World Record, but I didn’t have the proper data or witnesses to prove it.  Anyway, I am not that big on records.

I went to the end of the road and turned back to go see where it was (no, I’m not stupid.)  Christine was going to be heading out for her run, and I wanted to stay in the area to warn her about it.  Fortunately, she went an entirely different route that day.  All in all, I probably ran by that spot 8 or 9 more times total for my run without seeing it again.  Of course, I was running down the center of the road as well.

I was definitely thankful it happened in the first 3 or 4 miles because my calves would have taken me down in the last couple.  The ride and run combo of the weekend took its toll!