As a woman runner, I put my safety and well-being at the forefront. I never run at night unless my darling accompanies me, and I’m even leery to run alone early in the morning. I stay on well-traveled trails, and though I often run with my iPod, I am always aware of my surroundings.
While all of my precautions are common sense stuff, the true test comes when running in an unfamiliar city. This past weekend I was in Philadelphia for a personal chef conference, and I was also scheduled to do an 8-10 mile run. After consulting the GoPhila website, I decided the Schuylkill River Trail would be ideal; not only did it remind me of our local Burke-Gilman — a well-traveled, runner-friendly trail offering incredible views — it appeared to be within a couple miles from my hotel.
Although the route certainly looked safe, I emailed a local runner’s group to ask if there were any concerns (call me Nervous Nellie). I never got a reply but figured I could ask the hotel concierge. I also decided to run sans iPod.
Due to a travel snafu I didn’t arrive in Philly until 2 a.m., which meant I’d be starting my run late (the weather report said the humidity would be in the 80s, so I had wanted to get an early start). But by 9 a.m. I was ready to go and stopped at the concierge desk for directions. Seemed simple enough: turn left outside the hotel, right on 17th, follow 17th until the Ben Franklin Expressway (the only diagonal street), which would take me to the Philadelphia Art Museum and the Schuylkill Trail — an estimated 2 mile trek. He asked if I wanted to take a map with me but I declined (I didn’t have any pockets and would already be carrying my hotel card key).
I stepped out the front doors and was immediately hit with a wet blanket (figuratively, of course; I had forgotten what humidity felt like!). Garmin took forever to locate the satellites, so I took off before it could register. The sidewalks were teeming with people making their way to work, but I managed to dodge around them. At one point I came to what appeared to be a diagonal street, however, the sign said “Arch Street,” NOT the Ben Franklin Expressway. So I continued along 17th.
Here’s where judgment factors in. At what point do you determine the surroundings to be less than safe? When you see old, somewhat dilapidated houses with overgrown yards? If that were my only criteria, I wouldn’t run by my own house! When you hear reports of dangerous activity in the area? I have to be cautious even on my beloved Greenlake trail (a woman was sexually assaulted during a morning run several years ago). When you see homeless people? We often see them sleeping in the grassy areas by the lake, and I even found a man wrapped in a blanket sitting on my front porch one morning (I swear I live in a safe neighborhood!).
Or — and this is the toughest to admit — is it when the majority of people you see don’t look like you?
(more…)
As I look around my fair city and surrounding area, I’m baffled how I managed to take such a long break from exercise. We have hundreds of miles of trails for running, hiking and biking (both road and mountain); mountains galore for downhill and cross-country skiing; myriad waterways for kayaking; a plethora of lakes for swimming and diving; both natural and man-made rock walls for climbing — you name it — Seattle teems with opportunities.
While a (slightly) pulled hamstring is no fun, it forced me to do something I haven’t done in a while: cross train (or as the cool kids say, X-train). I had become so focused in my marathon training that I had forgotten how much fun (and beneficial) cross training can be. But one look at the 
