1. RUN WITH YOUR PHONE

Part of the appeal of going for a run is detaching yourself from a screen for even just 30 minutes. Your phone, though, is your first line of defence. Not only can you personally dial emergency services if needed, but you can also record harassment to report to the police and share your location with a trusted contact so they know where to direct people if you aren’t responding. You can also download apps like which will alert chosen contacts if you stop moving and don’t respond to the app’s alerts. Check your particular phone settings.

2. ENABLE EMERGENCY FEATURES ON YOUR WATCH

Chances are, you’re wearing a running watch—so make sure you know how to use the emergency features built into it. The Apple Watch’s Emergency SOS feature, for example, automatically calls local emergency services and shares your location with them; when the call ends, the watch sends your emergency contacts a text message with your current location.

On Garmin watches, you can enable the Assistance feature, which allows you to hold down the power button in order to send your real-time location to preloaded emergency contacts; Samsung watches also have an Emergency SOS feature that allows you to press the home key to call and notify pre-selected emergency contacts of your location.

3. PROTECT YOURSELF

After experiencing harassment, nearly a quarter of female runners started carrying a weapon or device for self-defence, RunRepeat.com reports. Any protection weapons in the UK are illegal (and can be used against you), but a personal alarm—like the Nathan SaferRun Ripcord Siren, which emits a 120 dB alarm—can alert anyone nearby to trouble, while GoGuarded’s $15 ring hides a blade you can use to fend off an attack.

4. DITCH YOUR IN- OR OVER-EAR HEADPHONES

No matter how motivating it is to blast your favorite running songs, sealing off your hearing leaves you vulnerable to unwanted danger (whether that’s from cars, animals, or people). You don’t have to give up your music, but go with an open-ear option like the Shokz OpenRun Pro headphones, which use bone conduction technology, or the JLab Open Sport or JVC Nearphones, which hook around your ear instead of blocking the ear canal.

5. DON’T RUN ALONE

Safety in numbers is pretty obvious from a practical standpoint, but there are other benefits to running with a buddy. For one, a workout partner keeps you accountable. But people who exercised with someone else were more calm and less stressed after exercise than those who exercised alone, older research published in the International Journal of Stress Management found. Plus, as anyone who’s spent hours with a long-run partner knows, those miles fly by when you’re chatting it up with a good friend.

6. STICK TO POPULATED AREAS

Running the streets of London can feel safe at all hours of the day, because there’s never a shortage of people, while running in smaller towns or more rural areas can feel downright desolate in the middle of the day. Keeping your routes to more populated areas can help you avoid being singled out by potential attackers. If you’re somewhere new, Strava’s Global Heatmap highlights the most commonly travelled routes for specific activities, so you can see which areas are popular and which areas you may want to avoid.

7. TAKE SELF DEFENCE CLASSES

Runners generally have the “flight” part of fight-or-flight covered, but if you can’t get away from an attacker, you need to know how to defend yourself. People who take self-defence classes feel more confident in protecting themselves, research has shown, and being able to fight back increases your chances of escaping an assault. Power For Women's self-defence courses are out of this world. You can learn basic self-defence moves to more advance you know what to do in a worst-case scenario. 

Speaking of worst-case scenarios, if you are in one and an attacker is attempting to subdue you, go for everything—eyes, throat, hair, and groin—and use. Shout, bite, scratch, gouge! (Introducing Women's Self defence Book by Hafiz Younis is also available on Amazon)

8. CHANGE YOUR ROUTES FREQUENTLY

The more predictable your behaviour, the more of a target you can be. Try switching up your route regularly (even running your standard route in reverse can be enough of a change) and running at slightly different times of the day. And make sure to use privacy settings on any fitness tracking apps so your daily running route doesn’t become public knowledge (Strava, for example, allows you to hide the start and end points of activities, or to prevent specific addresses from appearing on maps).

9. STAY AWARE/TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

No matter where you live—and no matter your gender—you should always use common sense (i.e. don’t choose the road less traveled when the sun’s already set), stay aware of your surroundings, and be able to defend yourself on the run. It’s not about living in fear, but anticipating any danger so you know how to respond if something does happen.

10. OVERALL, STAY SMART

Safety is mostly about being smart: Don’t willfully put yourself in situations where the deck is stacked against you—like running solo on an unlit path at night). You can’t control everything, but by controlling what you can, you can avoid a number of scenarios that might put you at risk. And even if you do always run in “safe” environments, letting people know where you’ll be, understanding basic self-defence, and paying attention to your surroundings will never detract from your run.