Ultramarathon runner tangles with coyote on California trail. ‘Rather terrifying’

On a 150-mile trail run in Marin County, California, near the Golden Gate Bridge, ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes thought he heard a “big dog” behind him.

That’s when a coyote knocked him down at 3 a.m. Friday, Aug. 12, leaving the 59-year-old bloodied and frightened, Karnazes told The San Francisco Chronicle.

Karnazes told KTNV that he and the coyote stared at each other while he wondered if it was after him or the power bars he’d packed for his run.

Then he “whacked it” with one of his running poles and the coyote dashed away, Karnazes said in an Instagram video posted shortly after the incident.

“Rather terrifying,” Karnazes called the encounter in his video, which shows him shaken up and sporting a bloody lip. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. But I guess I’ve got to keep going, or else it’ll probably come back for me.”

A National Park Service spokesman told The San Francisco Chronicle that the agency wouldn’t call the tangle an attack, suggesting Karnazes may have fallen after running into the coyote.

Karnazes said he’s run into coyotes before, including the previous day on the 150-mile run, and never had any problems, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

He told KNTV it was “a very isolated incident” and blamed it on people feeding coyotes on the trail.

This story was originally published August 16, 2022 at 2:13 PM with the headline "Ultramarathon runner tangles with coyote on California trail. ‘Rather terrifying’."