What's Working and NOT: Take Back the Morning Run

So, this is a pretty serious topic, and one I'm realizing needs to be remembered more often in my memory. I'll start off with what's NOT working, not just for me but for ALL us women runners out there. 

Last night, I found out an employee of the company I do work for, was physically assaulted while on her early am run last Friday. While running, a guy came up from behind, struck her with a blunt object, and forced her down. She managed to break away, scale a neighbor's fence, call 911 on her cell, and lay there for police to arrive. She ended up with a fractured jaw, bruises/cuts, and a broken arm. She is okay and on the mend, but this is absolutely incredulous.

And it always hits deeper when you know the person, and I knew this woman as a super fit mama runner. And then I thought of all YOU bloggy runners out there doing your early morning runs. I felt the urge to sprint home and type 'be aware and be careful out there!'

The idea of always having to watch your back, and worry about this sort of thing is NOT working for me. I realize there are definitely things we can do to heighten our safety on our runs, but the bottom line is- Why do WE have to worry about this? It's not what I signed up for at all..

So a group of her co-workers decided they needed to find a way to support this runner and all morning runners, and not allow fear and anger to take over their streets, neighborhood and town. So they created a 'Take Back the Morning Run' where everyone was welcomed to come out this morning at ~5:30 am and run her route and Take Back The Morning Run. 

And before we all set off to run, the organizer acknowledged the pain and frustration of the assault, and how great it was to have all us out there for support. Then, she reminded us that most of the world is a GOOD place. From there she asked if we liked, we could give a blessing to the streets by thinking of the bottom of our shoes as spreading good, positive energy and light back into the streets and neighborhood. This framing definitely worked for me. It allowed me to acknowledge the pain that had occurred, and feel like I could be part of a positive solution.

And I think other positive solutions I can do is talk about it, write about it here, think of all the ways to remember to be safe out there: run with a group, take a self defense class, carry mace, carry your cell, run in VERY well lit roads (however, in her case she was running to meet a group, she had her cell, and was in a fairly lit neighborhood-a few street lights were out. ugh) So that's what I'm doing by sharing this story with all YOU runners: Be safe and be aware. And please SHARE any other tips, ideas, ways you know for protecting yourself on your runs. 

We all deserve to run baby.