By Carolyn Cole
Published on August 16, 2008

Thousands of runners surrounded Jim Ross as he raced with his son John Ross, feet pounding on cobblestones as six Spanish bulls and eight oxen overtook them.

The bulls barreled downhill toward them, reaching speeds of 15 mph, and as quickly as the race started, the stampede passed Jim Ross after a sprint of less than 100 yards.

“We were extremely thankful we weren’t hurt,” Ross, a Mustang resident, said. “The experience was just exhilarating.”

Ross made the run during the July San Fermin Fiesta in Pamplona, Spain. The Fiesta starts each year on July 6, and runners race with a herd of bulls every morning between July 7 and July 14 as they stampede along four streets in a half-mile path to the bull-fighting arena.

There are dozens of bull runs throughout Spain, but Pamplona’s fame, rooted in Ernest Hemingway’s classic “The Sun Also Rises,” draws thousands into the city’s narrow, cobblestone streets. Each year, dozens of people are injured in the festival, and at least 15 have died from their wounds since 1924.

Last summer Ross saw Pamplona’s run on television, and as he marked his 70th birthday last November, Ross said he wanted to do something — take a risk.

“I could do that — it sounds like a real good adventure,” he said. “A guy 70 years old who has done that, he kind of knows he is still around.”

Ross asked some of his friends to make the run with him — they all turned him down. Ross then mentioned it to his son, John Ross, who he said was excited by the idea.

The younger Ross has always been a bit of a daredevil, Jim Ross said, and the Mustang High School graduate and mountain climber had bungee jumped off a bridge in China. Running with the bulls wasn’t much of a stretch for him, his father said.

For months, Jim Ross trained for the run, jogging several miles a few times a week on his home treadmill and dropped 10 pounds. An avid golfer in his retirement, Ross said he thought he was pretty fit starting out.

“I thought it would be easy to get into shape, but it wasn’t,” he said. “It always had been before.”

The festival finally came, and on their first day, Ross and his son sat the stampede out, watching the runners, dressed in white shirts and pants with red waist sashes and neck ties, dash by. They decided to run Santa Domingo Street, known as one of the most dangerous stretches of the route.

On the second day, father and son stepped out at 7:30 a.m. onto the cobblestone alleyway with thousands of other runners waiting to hear a rocket fired at 8 a.m. signaling that the bulls are out of their pen.

“You are pretty anxious,” Ross said. “The streets are narrow — there are a lot of people.”

Ross said he could see the bulls coming toward them before they took off running. As the father and son sprinted uphill, he said he saw the fence they intended to use to break away from the crowd was blocked by spectators, but they managed to get free near the town square.

“All of the training I was doing to run fast — maybe wasn’t needed as much as I did (practiced for),” Ross said, adding the flow of crowd limited his speed.

As the bulls pounded past, and Ross and his son stopped to catch their breath, emergency workers rushed to help a man in his early 20s, who had fallen in the stampede. Ross said the man fell backwards, hitting his head on the cobblestones before the herd stepped on him.

“The emergency people were out there on him in 15 to 20 seconds,” he said. “I mean, they were set up for this.”

After the run, Ross and his son paid about $80 each to watch the bullfighters, or matadors. Ross said they crammed into an arena with 40,000 other people, and after the first few bouts, he couldn’t watch anymore.

The matadors stab the bulls with multiple ceremonial swords before finally delivering the deathblow.

“They (the bulls) are mad, they are charging because they have been stabbed,” he said. “I found myself rooting for the bull.”

Ross said he was surprised to see only one animal rights protester outside the arena on the night of the fight. The man was covered in blood and carried a sign.

At first, Ross said he didn’t know what to think. Then he saw the whole stadium of spectators give a standing ovation as a bull crashed to the arena floor.

“This guy (the matador) did such a good job that the whole crowd stood up, and I left,” he said.
After seeing the bullfight, Ross and his son left Pamplona for two days in Madrid, where they toured the ancient city and its museums.

Then they left Spain for Attelwil, Switzerland for a side trip to find their family’s roots. Ross found the home where his great-grandmother lived as a girl before her family immigrated to the United States. They met long-lost cousins who still live in the home, which has been in their family for 350 years.

“To stand on the porch there where she may have stood as a girl and look out over the valley ... it was very thrilling,” Ross said.

The summer trip is one Ross said he will remember for his lifetime, but he added he doesn’t believe he would take another run with the bulls.

Although, several of his family members hope to make the run with their children when they are old enough, he said he told them, “I will be with you in spirit only.”