Never judge a book ...

[NettieNoo]

I had a bit of an 'eventful' run last night. It started off with shooting on the farmland adjacent to the path I was on. Just a farmer shooting rabbits I guess, but it was so loud that every time I heard it I jumped out of my skin. Then there were LOADS of cyclists. Cyclists fall into one of three categories in my experience; 1. The considerate, polite ones, who ring a bell or call out "bike coming past on your right!" before they pass you,

2. Those who ring a bell, but wait until they're right on your heels before they do it, causing your heart to lurch alarmingly, and

3. Those who do neither, just come up behind you, silently, at an alarming rate of knots and then whistle past your right ear. There were dozens of those last night.

Then there was a lad on a motorbike (on a foot / cycle path!). He was going very slowly, fortunately, but he was dressed head to foot in black, with a dark tinted visor and so his speed, far from being comforting, gave the impression he was a hitman, eyeing me up before he took me out (not in a nice way 😁).

So I was a bit jittery when I encountered the next person. I caught his eye just as he took a swig of something from a vodka bottle (vodka, presumably) and realised he was probably homeless. He looked dirty and unkempt. I averted my eyes almost immediately, thinking I didn't want to encourage any further interaction. He looked down immediately too and said, "Oh, sorry, I'm really sorry." It was horrible, like he was apologising for even existing and I felt bad that he felt he had to apologise to me for being who he is. I called out, "No you're alright, honestly it's fine," and he replied, "You enjoying your jog?" I replied, "Yeah, something like that" and he said, "Well keep it up, it's brilliant what you're doing."

I carried on, feeling sorry that I'd made an assumption, and that someone knows they frighten / alarm other people, but mostly humbled to have encountered him and to have experienced only kindness. (Also a bit miffed he called it jogging, not running 🤣 and chuffed to bits that the whole conversation occurred without me stopping or gasping for breath).

As a woman, running alone (and a fairly anxious one at that) I do worry about my physical safety. I'm sensible and I take all sorts of precautions like letting people know where I'm going, but I've actually only had one uncomfortable experience in 4 years, when somebody followed me. It's important to be safe, but I think it's also important to remember that most people are just fine (and like on this occasion, positively encouraging).

[Irishprincess Graduate]

Such a great post. I think it’s only normal for most of us to make assumptions based on all sorts of things but your experience is a sad tale and you wonder how anyone can end up in such a hopeless situation. His comment must have given you a little boost though 🙂

But you’re right to be cautious. As women, I think it’s built into our DNA and, while we don’t want fear to hold us back, we also need to think things through a bit and take sensible precautions.

I run on mostly deserted country roads and have never experienced weird people or had insults thrown at me. Just once a male runner came from nowhere behind and scared the wits out of me but it all ended OK. I do believe that the vast majority of people are harmless.

Just think that we could probably outrun most potential scary people anyway 😂

[NettieNoo Graduate in reply to Irishprincess]

I definitely couldn't run fast enough to get away from someone, but if they were as slow as me I reckon I could keep going for longer 🤣