My patron saint is Boudicca
Running while female, and why I choose risk
I think of this newsletter as a weekly love letter on life sent directly to 200+ people. Yes, it’s about running, but it’s mostly about existence and feeling as expressed and managed through running.
So I would be remiss if I didn’t say anything about the recent murder of runner Alyssa Lokits in Nashville on October 14, who was attacked and killed during a run. Alyssa loved running, and from what I’ve read of her, clearly loved life. She was doing nothing wrong; she was simply living, until someone decided to take that away from her. That is horrifying, and I hope that her attacker is punished to the fullest extent permitted by law.
While the sentiment of horror is shared across the running ecosystem, the interpretation of how to respond to it is somehow not. Across many blogs, I’m seeing more and more calls for women to be safe, where safe is defined as running in groups, in the daytime, and with protective gear like mace and whistles.
What I don’t see is a call for society to reject violence and restrict access to dangerous weapons.
It’s not the responsibility of woman to be ever safer and restrict our behavior when we’re doing nothing wrong; it’s the responsibility of society to utterly and totally reject violence. To reject attacks on anyone but especially on women, a historic target of attack.
I talk a lot in this blog about running alone and about running at night. That’s because:
I like running alone; it’s my “me” time. My time to invest in myself.
Night is literally the time I have. I don’t have daylight hours to run. I wake up when it’s dark, and my kids go to bed when it’s dark. I could run in the afternoons, but then I wouldn’t see them. And I want to see them.
So even when I want to make it to a run club, it’s hard to do. Like many parents-of-young-children with demanding jobs, I often can’t make it to events, and it’s hard to summon the strength to talk and make friends when I do. My time is allotted; my emotional load is fully subscribed. So I run at night, alone.
For those wondering, I do take steps to stay safe, because I will go run, but Im aware of the risk. These steps include:
I never run city or suburban trails or parks alone. I just don’t. I get it that they’re fun and pretty and you can pretend you’re ~iN~NaTuRe~, but first of all, that’s a mirage, you’re not, and second of all, it’s clearly dangerous.
I don’t run through enclosed areas: no pedestrian overpasses, no temporary structures under scaffolding. I run in the street to avoid those. At least in traffic, multiple people can see me at any one time.
I only run in neighborhoods with active populations. Running in the suburbs, frankly, scares me. I live in cities, and city neighborhoods are more active than suburban ones. If you live in the suburbs, your calculations will be different from mine.
I never run with in-ear headphones. On long runs in the mornings, if I wear them, I wear bone conductors so I can hear traffic and, yes, threats.
If I get vibes, I turn around. Just last week I was in Kansas City, MO for a work trip, and as I headed towards the Missouri to run a riverside route, I started getting a lot of catcalls. It was still day, but I was in a new place, so I headed back up the hill and found different streets to run on. I never made it to the Missouri, but I feel sure that I can try again when I go back to KC next time. The river will be there.
So yes, there are many things I do to stay safe while running. I know that Alyssa Lokits probably did a lot of these things too, and it didn’t save her. But as her family said in an interview with Runner’s World magazine:
“…[They are] adamant that women runners shouldn’t be fearful. They should keep running.
“We just can’t be afraid, because I know that she would not be afraid,” Lokits said. “She was fierce and strong and she would get back out there. And I know that it feels scary to get back out there. We have to, we have to keep running, and we have to keep moving and loving each other.”
The Lokits family isn’t alone. Projects like Sarah Ackland’s work Taking Space and Chinatown Runners are testimonies to that. (Thanks to
for featuring Sarah!) But for better or worse, those are run clubs. Lots of the solutions I hear about are run clubs. And clubs, as I said before, can be hard to get to.So for me, my patron saint is Boudicca, and what I won’t do is stop. I won’t give in to the nebulous threats and the unfair responsibility of safety. I reject the threats against me, even as I stay cognizant of them. I will be visible. And I want everyone to know that, yes, there is risk to running alone, but that risk can be mitigated, and should not keep you out of running.
So show up for yourself. Get out there. Whether you do it in a gym, in the morning, in broad daylight, or at night, go run.
Yes yes and yes! I am a woman, and I prefer to run in the mornings around my (yes suburban) neighbourhood. I'm in Canada, and even though I know that I'm not immune to violence or attacks even here (i do live in a major city), I feel somewhat safer than say if I lived in New York or Detroit or LA. Maybe that's naive of me. But I am always aware. I have air conducting headphones (not bone, but I can hear my surroundings) and I wear Reflective stuff (I always run with a hydration vest (mostly for the pockets!) that has Reflective elements on it. Anyways, yes it shouldn't be up to US to change our behaviour, but society to change its! Thanks for the great piece. I heard about Alyssa's murder on a running podcast (can't remember which - perhaps the Women’s Running Podcast). So tragic and heartbreaking.
Thank you for these words. Thank you for articulating the fear that can be present, what can come from simply doing what you love in the face of that fear, and how to go about continuing that pursuit even when fear can't be diminished at times.