Brent Kearney

It was a beautiful October evening in Banff, and I was home early — as I often am on Mondays — looking forward to getting out for a run before the sun set. Things were busy at work and at home, I had a lot on my mind, including ramping up training for the cross country ski season, and for my next adventure race in the early summer. I was feeling good, and started off with a strong pace towards the Sundance Canyon, just down the hill from my place.

I enjoy that route in the evenings, because the trail runs east-west, providing spectacular scenery at dusk, when the skies turn purple, yellow, pink and sometimes even shades of green. Given the time that I was leaving for my run, I would have been treated to this during my return from the canyon, if it weren’t for one of my neighbours, her little dog, and an old dead tree.

I had just picked up speed, running down-hill on the trail from my house, when I spotted the little dog, connected to it’s owners by one of those ever-expanding retractable leashes. The dog was one of those hyper, yappy little dogs. It had spotted me running in their direction, and was going wild, running towards me. I looked at it’s owners, a mother-daughter pair, who saw me coming as well. I was approaching a bend in the trail where I turn off, onto a less traveled path through the woods. I picked up speed, figuring that I would make it to the turn-off before the dog did, and/or the leash-holder would do the sensible thing and pull the crazed animal back. I was wrong on both measures.

There are a lot of wind storms here in the mountains, and as a result, fallen trees are very common. I don’t think twice about jumping over them while running, or bunny-hopping them on my mountain bike. So I was habitually unconcerned that there was a fallen tree crossing my path. It just so happened that at the exact moment my feet left the ground, as I hopped over the tree, the hyper little dog made a last-moment lunge for me. I cleared the dog, but not it’s leash, which snagged my foot, tripping me onto the downed tree. Which was covered in branches…

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