Womens safety while running alone

smolmaus

girlinahat wrote: »

I was once walking home very late (and somewhat inebriated) with a guy behind me. He kept trying to reassure me that he was just walking home the same direction, telling me that he was crossing the road to not worry me. I found that worse than him just being there. Then, he stopped at the end of a street, and invited me back to his. Seriously.

Good grief. He thinks he gets it, but still so very very far away.

mbaker566

knowing a few criminal elements
they do look for people with earbuds in or on the phone or generally look like they aren't aware of their surroundings.
groups are discouraging
dogs are discouraging(even yappy noisy dogs)
they look at how you carry your bags

besides my anecdotal knowledge, studies have been done stating similar things. and has little to with sex other than a smaller person appears to be an easier target.
to a criminal you are an object, not a person

HoneyBadger302

Coming from an ex-cop:

Awareness of your surroundings is going to be your #1 best bet. Even with music on, keep the volume low enough you can hear sounds around you. Head up, eyes and head looking around. If you see someone, very briefly make eye contact - it can just be in passing, but enough so they know you see them. You don't have to hold the contact, it's literally just passing your eyes across theirs. Most dirt bags are going to be looking for someone who is unaware of what's around them, distracted, easy targets. If you're looking at your phone, look at it, look up, and visually sweep the area close and far, then look down, then look up doing a full sweep again. Your head down and glued to that screen is an easy, easy target.

Self defense and martial arts are not a bad idea. You can learn things like how to break someone's arm if they grab your ponytail, actually turning your supposed "handle" into a way to control a would be attacker. You can kill and seriously maim someone with your bare hands, and it's not hard to learn to do - usually the harder part is keeping your cool enough to actually do those thing if you were attacked, and that's where practice and repetition come in. Doing it a few times in a class probably won't be enough - practice with friends/SOs regularly so your body knows how to respond and you don't have to "think" about it. Hopefully you never need it, but that confidence in knowing you can carries over into how you carry yourself, and can be a turn off on it's own, never actually confronting someone.

I'm not a big fan of carrying a weapon, unless it's something very simple that you are trained in using, such as a very short "stick". Mace can have no effect on some people, while it may affect you, so after having experienced it myself, is something I would never carry as it affects me worse than a lot of other people. And as someone else pointed out, your would-be attacker can end up with your weapon using it against you - not an idea situation.

In my experience (this may vary in other areas) most crimes are happening late in the evening - so if you're a morning runner, typically, the criminal element is finally asleep. Running later at night is when they are at their height of activity, so I would avoid that if you live in an area that has a regular crime problem. If you live in a typical neighborhood outside of the big cities, typical safety things like sticking to lighted areas where you can see are probably fine. I live in a relatively low-crime area, and would have no problems going for a run/walk in the evening before 9pm.

And then there's the old adage of yelling "Fire" instead of "Help." Old idea, but still kind of true - people tend to yell and scream at each other, and the word help can come out in those fights, but fire is more likely to actually get a response from people in the area. Again, trick is remembering to yell that....

AnnPT77

HoneyBadger155 wrote: »

Coming from an ex-cop:
<snip much good advice>

Self defense and martial arts are not a bad idea. You can learn things like how to break someone's arm if they grab your ponytail, actually turning your supposed "handle" into a way to control a would be attacker. You can kill and seriously maim someone with your bare hands, and it's not hard to learn to do - usually the harder part is keeping your cool enough to actually do those thing if you were attacked, and that's where practice and repetition come in. Doing it a few times in a class probably won't be enough - practice with friends/SOs regularly so your body knows how to respond and you don't have to "think" about it. Hopefully you never need it, but that confidence in knowing you can carries over into how you carry yourself, and can be a turn off on it's own, never actually confronting someone.

<snip more good advice>

Maybe it's an artifact of my age (I grew up when young women didn't much do contact sports), but for me another helpful thing about an extended martial arts practice (not just a single self defense class or two), was internalizing the difference between pain and injury.

When someone hits or kicks you hard, the pain has a big shock component, and it can be distracting and disabling (more from the mental side than the physical). Automatically recognizing pain (vs. injury) and not being immobilized (even temporarily) by it is a pretty helpful thing. An actual disabling injury, maybe even a minor one, requires an adjustment in tactics. Pain requires nothing but that you ignore it, and route any resulting adrenaline boost productively.

I've been to quite a few "women's self defense" classes (one or two session types). The best spent a good bit of the wall-clock time on awareness and situation assessment, with a run-down of the actual types of assaults that were most common (though still statistically rare ) in the area (locations, times, weapons or no, etc.). The worst spent almost all the time on physical tricks taught by instructors who didn't really understand them fully, then practiced with fellow students who applied them half-heartedly (didn't want to hurt anyone) against a basically non-resisting fellow student "opponent" (also didn't want to hurt anyone).

_nikkiwolf_

What I found interesting when reading this thread is that many people advocate letting other people know that noticed them. I attended a self-defence evening many years ago, but I seem to remember that the instructor had the opposite advice, stating that looking around at each small sound makes you look insecure and therefore a potential target?

Other than that, I remember that we learned this arm movement technique to free yourself when someone grabbed your wrist. I practised with another girl and was quite happy at how well I was able to do it at the end of the session. And then I wanted to show it to a friend later who is two heads taller and twice as heavy an me (and quite muscular on top). And it didn't work on him when he really tried to keep a grip! If I remember right, the technique somehow relied on turning your hand and then putting rotating it out at the exact spot where the thumb and fingers of the attacker touch where their hand wraps around your wrist. Only that I have very small wrists, and my friends fingers and thumb "overlapped" when he tried to hold me, so that weak spot wasn't there. Quite a sobering realisation that what worked well on a girl my size in the self-defense class might not work against a strong man in real life...


Anyway, I always run alone, quite often between 22h-1h. When I was living in a big city, I would sometimes take pepper spray with me. Now I live in the countryside, and don't carry anything with me. Maybe it's foolish, but it's so rare that I meet anyone at all when running that late. I don't run at the same time each day, and I spontaneously decide where to go, so I don't expect anyone to lie in wait for me. I'm more worried about car drivers than anything else, so keeping the music volume very low when I run with headphones is a given.
Every now and then I meet another runner, or somebody walking a dog. But I don't think I've ever had anybody yell at me to announce that they are passing. Just say good evening as you draw even. Contrary to the advice I quoted at the start of my post, I usually glance behind me when I hear someone approach - and if it's a guy dressed in running clothes and headlamp, my first thought is "runner" and not "attacker", so that's fine with me.

autumnblade75

_nikkiwolf_ wrote: »

What I found interesting when reading this thread is that many people advocate letting other people know that noticed them. I attended a self-defence evening many years ago, but I seem to remember that the instructor had the opposite advice, stating that looking around at each small sound makes you look insecure and therefore a potential target?

I think there's a difference between looking alert and looking startled. You shouldn't be looking around startled at the sound, because you've already noticed the source of the sound. Usually, for me, it turns out to have been an animal - most of which probably aren't assessing my victim qualities by how easily I startle.

mbaker566

autumnblade75 wrote: »

_nikkiwolf_ wrote: »

What I found interesting when reading this thread is that many people advocate letting other people know that noticed them. I attended a self-defence evening many years ago, but I seem to remember that the instructor had the opposite advice, stating that looking around at each small sound makes you look insecure and therefore a potential target?

I think there's a difference between looking alert and looking startled. You shouldn't be looking around startled at the sound, because you've already noticed the source of the sound. Usually, for me, it turns out to have been an animal - most of which probably aren't assessing my victim qualities by how easily I startle.

agreed. i acknowledge everyone i see with a nod at the least. letting them know "i see you and have filed you away in my memory"
an anxious person is different than an aware person.

CSARdiver

Most of self defense is self awareness and avoidance. Really need to get out of the idea of safe areas. There are simply historical levels of risk.

Criminals are opportunists and going to opt for the runner with ear buds, not paying attention, without a dog, without pepper spray, etc. They are going to avoid someone making eye contact, someone aware, someone with a cell phone at the ready, etc. If you see someone engaging in predator activity call the police and alert them.

Do what you're comfortable with, but don't carry a weapon if don't commit to the training involved, even pepper spray.

I highly recommend a solid defense course for everyone - one that is realistic and tailored to your needs. In this case it's simple. This can be drilled down to 3-4 moves which you can apply to any situation.

Binky_Muffin

Can you borrow a friends or family member's dog? I run with a Doberman and/or Rottweiler. Nobody gives me a hard time.

FL_Hiker

Binky_Muffin wrote: »

Can you borrow a friends or family member's dog? I run with a Doberman and/or Rottweiler. Nobody gives me a hard time.

It takes a special dog to be able to keep up with a marathon training program, not all are built for long distances especially in hotter climates and pavement. There comes a point when bringing the dog along on the long runs just isn’t fair to the dog. I take my Swiss shepherd on shorter runs, he enjoys pretty much anything under 5 miles on a cold day, but beyond that he starts to want to lay down. Not to mention running with an untrained dog can be dangerous, the dog could pull you into traffic or trip you up and cause you to injury yourself. My friends and family don’t own large dogs, but if they did I could guarantee they wouldn’t be trained up to the level I expect my dog to be if he’s going to run by my side.