Quote:
Originally Posted by BigBen
Having seen a (black)bear run, I have to say it is a very humbling experience. They are very, very fast.
|
Word to that. I was hiking in the Smokeys as a teen and watched a black bear charge something. We were about 100 yards away, and the bear was moving laterally to us, and it gave me a greater respect for the fact that anything with 4 legs is inherently faster than me, no matter what shape I'm in. My neighbor growing up used to remind us that bears can run faster, climb higher and swim faster than any human, so if we go charged (unlikely with a black bear), just play dead.
My one other experience with a bear doesn't involve any running, but I did get to test what the ranger told Mal. I was on summer break and doing some volunteer work in the Smokeys with the aforementioned neighbor. We were putting some fill around some exposed roots when a bear wandered up the trail towards us. We were noisy and banged our shovels, yelled and generally tried to be bigger than the bear. The bear stopped and just sort of looked at us. We kept it up for a couple of minutes until the bear decided to sit down in the middle of the trail to watch the show. We basically just gave up and went back to what we were doing (but still keeping an eye on the bear). It got bored and wandered off up the hill, never to be seen again.
By the way, Michael Johnson could only aspire to 27.96 mph. That's more like Tim Montgomery (with or without the drugs). Only a 100m sprinter (or better yet a 60m sprinter) is going to hit that kind of speed.
Also, is including the perrigrin falcon fair if it's flying and not running?