But when I moved to Denver, my late evening runs stopped completely. There weren't many people in the city, the bike paths were full of shady underpasses, and riding through a dark neighborhood, completely isolated, made me feel uneasy and anxious.
The reality is maximum Women experience some level of stress while running. A recent Adidas survey of 9,000 runners in nine countries found that 92% of women said they were concerned about running safety. And when walking alone at night, women were much more likely than men to focus on areas where danger could lurk, including unlit areas, potential hiding places, places where they could get trapped, and often off the trail. 2024 study published in the journal violence and gender determined.
Women's fears are not unreasonable. Last February, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, died while running on the University of Georgia campus. In January 2023, another woman was out jogging with her dog in East Memphis when she was nearly kidnapped. East Memphis is just a mile from where Eliza Fletcher was kidnapped and murdered while running in 2022. Unfortunately, these headlines are all too common.
New Strava Safety Features
To overcome the fear many runners have of exercising alone when the sun isn't up, Strava recently announced two new safety features. The first, Night Heatmaps, only displays activity recorded between sunset and sunrise, allowing athletes to identify roads, trails and routes with high traffic after hours.
This is part of the platform's global heatmap, a map overlay (accessed via the bottom bar of the home screen) that aggregates public activity to highlight the most commonly used routes. This helps runners find new places to run and avoid isolated areas that may be unsafe. Now you can switch between day and night to see and choose different routes in the area depending on your running plans.
“I will be the first to admit that I went out and ran late at night,” said bronze medalist Molly Seidel. “It was a huge mistake.” She ran the 2021 Olympic Marathon and has been outspoken about Strava's privacy concerns. She says, “Knowing where other people are running at night makes me feel safer and gives me peace of mind. It's always going to be a much more enjoyable run if I'm not stressed the whole time.”
Tools like this put more power in the hands of female runners, helping them choose safer and simpler routes. “This is a feature that I think is very important,” says Jacqueline De Berry, an RRCA-certified running coach based in Miami. “I was driving through Los Angeles at night one time, and I ended up in one of the scarier parts of the city. I definitely feel more anxious in those situations. This is especially true in areas I don't know much about. “It would be nice to know which areas have more traffic if a situation arises and we need help.”
Strava also unveiled a new quick edit feature that will give athletes more control over the information they share with the Strava community. Quick Edits make it easier to make the most common edits, like hiding start times, maps, or other personal workout statistics. When you complete your run and open Strava on your mobile, a pop-up screen will appear allowing you to easily edit the fields. Both features are free to subscribers (paying $11.99 per month or $79.99 per year) and are expected to be released before the end of the year.
Why is it important?
“Not only did Strava provide runners with resources for safer running in the first place, but they also put all the privacy features in place to help people choose what they share,” says Seidel, who has endured online and offline. Safety issues related to activities on the app.
And it's not just professional runners who need protection from overzealous fans. “I live on a public trail that I used to run five days a week around 5:30 a.m. But after a month, I noticed a man walking his dog every morning at or around the time I run,” he says. Alejandra D., Orlando-based track and field athlete. “He was standing at the end of this short tunnel as if he was waiting for me. It gave me goosebumps.”
The man began appearing at various points along her route, even in her neighborhood. He eventually figured out which house was hers and just stood across the street and watched.
“Law enforcement was notified, but unfortunately there wasn't much they could do other than report it,” she says. “I bought a treadmill and ran most of the time in the hot garage, and I would run outside with a pocketknife, but I still didn’t feel safe. Now that it’s light out a little earlier, you might start your adventure again in the morning, but being able to see peak times or crowded roads will definitely put your mind at ease.”
Unfortunately, the responsibility for staying safe while running still seems to largely fall on the shoulders of female runners. An Adidas survey found that 62% of men are aware of the problem, but only 18% believe men are primarily responsible for helping women feel safer when running.
Clearly, the app is not responsible for bridging this gap. But Seidel says, “It was really cool to see a company like Strava, which has such a large presence in the running world, respond to the concerns of its users.” “They’ve taken a very proactive approach to women saying, ‘I don’t feel safe. We need these features,’ and they seem to be listening and acting on that.”
Because women do You want to run when and where it works best for you (and there are legitimate benefits to running at night!). and they do You want to participate in the community building that happens on social media apps like Strava by sharing photos of your routes or runs. But we can't do this safely without the tools to provide better information and protection, and a community to support these actions.
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- Chaney, Robert A., et al. “Gender-based heatmap images of campus walking environments: Reflecting real-life experiences.” violence and gender, flight. 11, no. March 1, 1, 2024, pp. 35–42, https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2023.0027.