This is the last place I ran alone & carefree. A thread on Mollie Tibbetts and running alone as a woman. 
I didn’t always love running. It wasn’t until I got to college that I realized just how helpful it was for my mental health.
When I got depressed, instead of smoking a cigarette I would run (err, most of the time). I put my headphones in, spandex shorts & t-shirt on, and I would run circles in a small neighborhood off campus.
It was the best form of self care I knew at the time.
During my last year at school, I was napping on a Wednesday afternoon (as college kids do) when a man attempted to break into my first-floor bedroom window and climb into bed with me.
The police later asked if I was a runner and if I ran the same route. Of course I did, I’m a creature of habit.
I didn’t realize running the same route could cost me the peace of mind of being able to sleep on a first floor ever again.
I graduated and moved to LA. And that city just made my depression so much fucking worse. So I ran. A lot. Like a shit ton. I ran every single day, sometimes twice a day.
I lived near the UCLA campus so most of the people around me were students. Aside from a few catcalls, I ran for months uninterrupted. I ran a different route every single time. I felt safe. It felt so fucking good.
A few months later I moved to NYC. I had stopped running in the midst of a new job & the stresses of realizing I was, apparently, a full-blown adult. Eventually, my depression returned as it always does. I started running again.
I ran the same route six days in a row. On the seventh night someone tried to break into my second floor apartment bedroom via the fire escape.
I will never know if the break in happened bc some random person thought my window was the easiest to get into or if it’s bc I ran the same route six days in a row. I do know that I never ran alone again.
Any woman who calls herself a runner knows just how terrifying the Mollie Tibbetts story is. The lengths that women have to go to protect themselves from being alone in public spaces is restrictive, exhausting, fucking terrifying.
I found out a few years after that first break in that my sister was almost abducted by a few guys in a van while she was on a run in college. Thankfully, she was able to fight them off. I've never seen her go on a run since.
Yesterday, my friend told me her mom stopped running after dark & bought an elliptical machine after her best friend was kidnapped & murdered while she was on a run.
Tibbetts had every right to run on her own. This is not a commentary on her actions, but a reflection on how the epidemic of violence against women (yes, it's a fucking epidemic) forces women to adapt & let go of things so integral to their well-being.
I live on the 29th floor now. I keep a baseball bat by my bed. I still don’t sleep very well. And I don’t really run anymore.
