Be Smart, Be Seen, Be Safe – Tips to Help You Stay Safe While Running When its Dark – Part 1

Today we start our series of posts based around the theme –‘Be Smart, Be Seen, Be Safe™’  – which provides a number of tips and recommendations that will help you stay safe while running in low/poor light conditions such as at dawn or dusk or at night when it is completely dark. In this post we introduce the potential challenges when running in low light or dark conditions and highlight some broad brush considerations on how to ‘Be Smart, Be Seen, Be Safe™’ in these circumstances.

Many people will be fully aware that throughout the winter months, going for a sunset run becomes extremely difficult during your working week. This is because there is a high possibility that when you leave the office or your place of work the sun has probably already set. So, if you like to jog after work or early evening throughout the winter time then it is likely you will end up running in the dark which also means you should be even more cautious.

It’s can be easy to zone-out while thinking about tomorrows to do list or what’s for the evening meal on a long run, but it’s imperative that you take note of your surroundings as well. Merely being aware of your surroundings can be the difference between minutes or seconds of avoiding an accident, particularly at nighttime when it becomes harder to differentiate objects from people.

It often pays to do your homework beforehand and set up a few well planned and rehearsed “In the Dark” routes in your neighborhood. Before adding any new routes to your night time run options, you should ideally run them by day to evaluate the conditions of the roads. Make sure you look for new routes that provide wide roads so that you have plenty of room to run, along with street lamps to help illuminate your way and sidewalks.

On any new and less familiar routes you should try and make mental notes on where potentially dangerous road conditions such as potholes and other obstacles can be found. Also, don’t feel bad about running shorter routes on days when the weather is bad, every time visibility is poor and when having a solid footing is a lot more dangerous. Whenever possible try and light your path with a hand held light or headlamp as doing this will allow you to run more safely and to be more relaxed.

It goes without saying that your personal safety should be paramount every time you go out running, regardless if it’s a short lunchtime jog or a longer evening run. Nevertheless, running at nighttime always presents a much greater threat to our personal safety and unprotected bodies against drivers plus other risks such as unforeseen and poor road conditions and potential attackers.

So, if you choose to run in the dark or even prefer it to daytime running, our series of subsequent posts will provide several practical and common sense rules/tips to consider when running at dawn, dusk or at night when it is dark.

We are firm believers in our safety motto ‘Be Smart, Be Seen, Be Safe™’ when running in low light conditions or in the evening when it is dark.

Coming Up Next ….

In our next post (Part 2 of this series) we start to look at some of our recommended ‘Be Smart’ considerations for when you are out running in low/poor light conditions such as at dawn or dusk or at night.