Tips to Help You Stay Safe Running When its Dark – Part 3

Firstly let us recap on the 5 tips we provided in Part 2 of this series which offered some useful suggestions about how to ‘Be Smart’ when you are out running at night. We suggested you should:

1. Carry Some Form of  ID with You

2. Always Bring Your Cellphone

3. Pay Attention to Your Surroundings & Trust Your Instincts

4. Watch out for Bikes, Runners and Pedestrians

5. Avoid Extreme Weather Conditions

In this post we suggest 4 further “running” tips and recommendations as part of our ‘Be Smart’ considerations when running in low/poor light conditions such as at dawn or dusk or at night when it is completely dark.

6. Run a Familiar Route

It’s often easy to get bewildered and disoriented while running at night. Certain areas may seem recognizable and then completely alien a few minutes later. Limit yourself to the route(s) you’ve ran a million times to the level where you’ve memorized just about every tree, corner and property along it. Nevertheless, don’t run the same way every night either.

This may create a routine for undesirable individuals to track you. As an alternative establish the routes you’re secure running and mix it up every second night to keep it running pattern as random as possible. If you are contemplating running a new route you are wise to consider running this new route during the daytime, monitoring markers that you are able to distinguish in the dark. Another option is to run the route with someone who is familiar with it.

7. Run with a Friend or Join a Running Group

Preferably you should never run by yourself particularly at nighttime. Women need to especially refrain from running by themselves after dark in badly illuminated areas. If, however you choose to run alone, make certain to let someone know the route you’ll be taking, roughly how it will take you to finish your route and what time you anticipate to be back.

If you like to run at nighttime because that’s the ideal time that you can run, then try to buddy up with a friend who will also help keep you motivated and will supply an extra set of eyes and ears for anything strange or unexpected. Alternatively, Look for running groups that run at night if that’s the ideal time for you to run as there’s definitely strength and safety in numbers. Running with another person drastically cuts down the chance of anyone accosting you. You will definitely also have a buddy to keep you motivated and an additional set of eyes, and ears, to stay on the lookout for anything unexpected.

8. Ditch the Headphones and Music

While running at nighttime, it is best to make use of all your senses, not just your vision. In the dark your sense of sight is actually affected, which means you want to use your sense of hearing as much as you can to enable you to remain alert for the duration of your night time runs and headphones can sidetrack you.

Make sure you therefore withstand the temptation of wearing earphones to enjoy your music on the cellphone while running outdoors. Blocking off your sense of hearing leaves you at a disadvantage. You are unable to listen to oncoming motor vehicles, cyclists yelling to move, dogs barking, or almost every other possible threat.

However, If you cant beat the need to tune in to your music then make sure you only use just one earbud and keep the sound level at a minimum so that the second ear can still hear what’s taking place around you e.g. oncoming motor vehicles, trains and even people.

As outlined by a research from the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, accidents concerning pedestrians wearing earbuds who were subsequently struck by motor vehicles and trains have grown threefold in the last six years. The most terrible part is that in 70 percent of those occurrences, the runner or pedestrian was killed.

Night running is often about feeling primal, to be one with nature, and listening to your body’s movements. Make the most out of your experience by keeping aware, vigilant, and calm.

9. Consider Installing a Tracking App on your Phone

You should always leave a note at home with the route you will be taking, but as a further safety measure you should also think of utilising one of a number free-phone tracker applications such as:

  • Glypmse, that enables your family and friends to track your location on the run.
  • bSafe App which with a push of a button on your phone sends an emergency message or calls designated friends who are able to take action and even locate you on a map.
  • Road ID app that enables emergency contact information to be shown on a smartphone even when it’s locked. It also has an extra feature called eCrumb that monitors runners via GPS, allowing friends and family to follow you during a workout.

Luckily, lots of people tend to run with their phones, however if you’re the type who wants to stay off the grid while running, perhaps it’s advisable to reconsider, at least for nighttime running.

We hope you find these 9 ‘Be Safe’ tips and recommendations useful when you go running in the dark.

Coming Up Next …. In our next post (Part 4 of of series) we will move onto our ‘Be Seen’ tips and recommendations to help you run more safely at dawn or dusk or at night. Specifically we will be providing tips and recommendations related to your running tactics and improving your visibility while out exercising when it is dark.

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