I am marathon training and finding that the best time for me to fit in my weekly LSR is early in the morning when it is still dark. I live in West London and have a couple of routes, one along the Thames towpaths and another into Richmond Park, that I have been using. I often don't see any other runners and, at most one or two. I recently started running with a head torch which helps me see where I am going but probably would offer little (well, no) protection against attack. What do most people do in this situation? I do not want to have to run long distances on lit pavements as I find the soft trails are quite important to my ability to absorb the longer runs. Thanks for any advice.
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Hi,
Don't have any useful advice apart from find a buddy or running group? Might be hard when your training times are limited!!
I understand how you feel, I am petrified of running alone! Unfortunately, my running has really suffered!!!
I'm another in the just do it category... I run alone at night in a very central london park. The chances of attack are actually very small, especially in the winter when no one is going to stand around for hours in the cold on the off chance you might come by.
I found the morning better but dont have time for it anymore (less chavs walking their monster dogs). If you are worried vary your routes on different days/weeks and make sure you never run to exhaustion (so you can run away if necessary). There's also Old Deer Park round that way if you fancy laps of a few fields as its on the main road perhaps a bit better lit?
LIrish - thanks for the suggestion about the northside of the Thames which is what I tend to do! Sounds as if we use the same routes?