"Come on love, run faster!"
This week is Anti-Street Harassment Awareness Week. As a woman who runs, and as a running coach, this issue is particularly close to my heart. Sadly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, even in 2024 this is still a daily issue my running groups and I contend with and frankly, I am sick of it.
I’m sick of giving my beginner runners advice on how not to be harassed.
I’m sick of people I tell about it telling me to “take it as a compliment!”.
I’m sick of how, as a woman in her 50s, I can not simply go for a run without facing abuse, unsolicited comments and general attention I have not asked for and do not want. It’s exhausting, and if I didn’t love running as much as I do, and feel fuelled by fury to not let these incidents stop me doing the exercise I love, I would have hung up my running shoes and stayed inside a long time ago.
I often hear from people who join my running school that feeling safer is one of the primary reasons for signing up, but even being in a group doesn’t stop it happening.
Just last week, in a private car park where I was warming up my beginner group ahead of their first session, a group of teenage boys turned up and joined in our circle, mocking our stretches while we tried our best to ignore them. This sort of intimidation is not harmless banter, and it certainly isn’t funny. If you’re not careful, these micro-aggressions can accumulate to such a degree that they prevent you from ever lacing up your trainers and leaving the house.
Over the years, I have had many conversations in my head with the thousands of nameless, faceless, let’s face it Men, who think it is either funny or clever or appropriate to cat call, honk, block my path, tell my runners to stop talking, or even, to “keep it up fatty” as happened to one of my favourite Substackers
This is the polite version of what I would like to say to them and what I frequently do tell them in my head, usually whilst in the shower of course, where all fake confrontations come to fruition.
Dear Would Be Street Harasser,
Thank you so much for your generous advice, hurled whilst driving past me from your car window. I didn’t think you were Linfold-sodding-Christie from first glance, but obviously my eyes deceived me judging from your really sound and well considered advice to “come on love, run faster!”.
The thing is Lindford, whilst I respect your gold medals and was a huge fan of Record Breakers (who wasn’t?!), I don’t actually need to run faster, and neither do any of the women running alongside me- we’ve got it, thanks.
You don’t know what session we did last night; we may already have run faster in that appropriate “run faster” session.
I mean you don’t actually even know what we were doing before you passed us. You don’t know how many miles we’ve done or how many we might still have to go. You don’t know at what point we are on our training plan, or even what we’re training for, so again thank you but we’ve actually got this.
What’s that you’re saying now Lindford? “Stop chatting and move your arse!” Look we all have different approaches to motivation and I respect that, of course I do, but you’re the one sitting on yours while we’re out using ours… And the thing is, we can chat if we want to. Some of us are here just for the running, others of us for the company and companionship. That’s not actually a crime…
Besides, we don’t need to justify ourselves to you, and you’re not the judge of whether we’re allowed to run or not. There is no exam we need to pass or kit we need to wear or age we need to be or body we should have to ‘qualify’ as a runner. We’re out here running, so we are runners. It’s that simple.
We have just as much right to be outside and take up space as anyone else, and we’re not sorry at all that that seems to offend you so much.
So please, man in the van who thinks absolutely everyone is entitled to his good opinion and probably isn’t actually Lindford Christie, think what you like about us but have the self control that women seem to find easy enough and KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!
