Runner Bitten by Wild Dog Mid-Race in Kyrgyzstan Kept Going to the Finish Line
Ioana Barbu was attacked without warning by a wild dog during an ultra marathon in the Tian Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan — and with a few miles left, she chose to finish the race.
“I’m just running along. First thing I first knew of this dog, it had his teeth in me,” Barbu told CNN in March 2026.
There was no growl, no warning bark. The animal simply lunged.
Bleeding from the bite, Barbu grabbed her running poles to drive the dog away, then used her GPS tracker to call for help. Standard protocol would have been to stop and wait for medical assistance. She kept running, knowing she could seek a rabies vaccine once the race was completed.
She even found dark humor in the moment afterward. “I keep jogging that the dog did me a favor because with adrenaline kicking in, I did not mess about on this uphill — it got done quick,” she said.
How the Experience Impacted Ioana Barbu
She didn’t place in the race. That wasn’t the point for her. Instead, Barbu took away something far greater.
“It’s taught me I’m so much stronger than I thought I was,” she said. “Also, it’s really rewarding to set yourself a goal and work towards it — there’s strength in that, and there’s a lot of power in that.”
Ioana Barbu Broke Records and Faced Danger
The dog attack wasn’t Barbu’s first brush with danger during a race, either. She became the first athlete to complete the Beyond the Ultimate Global Race Series in a single year, racing across some of the harshest environments on Earth — from icy Arctic conditions to dense jungles and scorching deserts.
Each environment carried its own hazards. “In the jungle, you get told about all the snakes and all the creepy crawlies and things like that. And then in the desert, there’s snakes, bushes that are dangerous, highly poisonous,” she said.
But the Kyrgyzstan attack stood apart from those experiences. Unlike venomous snakes or extreme cold, there was no safety briefing that could have prepared her for an animal lunging out of nowhere on the course. It tested her ability to react under sudden, shocking pressure in one of the most isolated mountain ranges on Earth.
Her response was immediate: fight the dog off with her poles, call for help, then finish what she started — three miles of mountain terrain while bleeding from a bite wound. She made it to the finish line after five grueling days of racing.
A Lesson in Determination
For a runner who has raced across every extreme landscape the planet offers, it wasn’t the ice or the desert heat that gave her the biggest lesson about herself. It was a dog, three miles from the finish, in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.
Barbu’s experience is a raw reminder of how unpredictable ultra-distance racing can be, even for an athlete who has already survived jungles, deserts and Arctic ice in a single year of competition.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
