Staying Safe While Running

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

On September 2nd, Eliza Fletcher was killed while on a run. The running world reeled. Women especially felt a certain sense of dread. Can we ever really feel safe? This thing that serves as an outlet and a lifeline; a sport that has the power to both rescue and destroy our egos, a sport that seems, on the surface, an easy one to access. Anyone can run, so long as they have a pair of shoes and a half-descent sense of direction. Anyone should be able to access this freedom.

But, there’s always a but. And more often that not, women are on the negative end of that “but.” We’re told to carry pepper spray. We watch men watch us. We turn our social media apps private. We vary our routes, take self-defense classes, carry mace, carry knives. Some of us carry guns, and yet, we’re still seen as easy targets.

I was 12 when I caught the thrill of running between my teeth, like a dog playing tug of war. I didn’t want to let go, not so much because I wanted the rope, more because I wanted to win the game. Back then, I ran along the edge of the cornfield behind my parent’s house. It was a mile and half to the edge of the fence line and back. Eventually, I started running on the long, lonely country streets that crisscross Northwestern Wisconsin. When I went away to college, I started running through city streets…