Meet Roadrunner, the Long-Distance Running Cat

A personal trainer, Michael Greenblatt, adopted a cat after she started tagging along on his daily runs. Now she's a pro.

One day in 2008, New Jersey fitness trainer Michael Greenblatt was out for his daily run when he came across a stray black kitten. The kitten sat on the pavement and watched as he ran by. The next day, he saw her again. And the next day, and the day after that.

Finally, after several weeks, the kitten got tired of simply watching, and decided to run alongside Greenblatt. She kept pace with him throughout his run, and by the time he slowed down, he knew he couldn’t let this cat go.

“I was not looking for a pet,” Greenblatt told the Asbury Park Press. “She found me, and it’s been a blessing.”

Greenblatt named the cat Roadrunner, and she’s been his constant running partner ever since. “I train her like an athlete,” said Greenblatt. In the past two years, he’s led Roadrunner on speed drills, and her time has more than doubled with his guidance. Initially, Roadrunner would run the 150 yards to the end of the block and back in two minutes; now, the exercise takes her just 54 seconds.

Now, Roadrunner is something of a local phenomenon along the Jersey Shore. Spectators crowd around to see the “world’s only long distance running cat,” and a local author is now in the process of writing a children’s book about the one-of-a-kind cat.

Check out the video of this fascinating cat below.