Deer attempts to bandit the Austin Freescale Marathon

The Austin Freescale Marathon was on Sunday. The gun went off, the crowd began the race, and a freaked out deer tried to bandit the race.

The deer, apparently disoriented, leaped over a pack of runners in the Freescale Austin Marathon on Sunday and hit Tillinghast’s left side when he was about 200 yards from the starting line. The impact of 90 pounds of venison brought him to his knees and he and the deer went down together. A few seconds later both recovered enough to leave the scene, the deer heading into the woods and Tillinghast resuming the race.

Matt Tillinghast finished the marathon, although it took him about 3 miles to get over the disorientation and nausea of getting bowled over by 90 pounds of flying meat. I have to say that I am impressed, and I do not know if I’d be able to run for 26 miles on a not so good ankle after getting tackled by a deer. I’ve chased and been chased by deer before while out jig jogging in the woods, but that’s completely different. Especially as there was no contact.

It does make for a great story, though. Next year, he plans on running with a “Watch out for flying deer” t-shirt.

I wonder what happened to the deer afterwards, or why it was so disoriented as to try to jump into the race?

(Source: John Tomac – Original article no longer available)