How a Planned Route Can Boost Safety When Night Running
Nobody likes the surprise of running out of food. Looking for cream for your morning coffee, but all that’s left is a few drops? Things like this throw a big wrench into your routine. Or they might derail your plan for dinner. So nobody goes to the grocery store for fun — it’s a place of essentials after all. When you’re in a rush, you may feel like you are winging it, but there’s at least some minimum level of thinking about what you need when you head to the store.
Every bit of thought you put into a grocery trip helps you out a lot. After all, nobody’s memory is perfect. A list ensures you won’t forget anything at the store. Even more important, it helps prevent you from making mistakes in stocking up on stuff you already have too much of — taking up space in the fridge and pantry. But every trip you make to the grocery store, big or small, has some level of making a plan.
It depends on each person, but we’re not always used to making a plan for everything we do. If you’re used to running in the day, you may be happy as a clam to bust out the front door without any idea of where you’re going. But when it comes to night running, it makes a lot less sense to wing it as you may do during the day. It can even be downright dangerous. We’re going to cover a few simple but effective details to plan your route for night running:
- Using well-lit paths
- Knowing your path ahead of time
- Rotating through paths
A well-lit night running route helps in a lot of ways
Of course, there are the obvious benefits of seeing where you are going without needing your own light. But also critically, it helps you to seen by others, particularly cars and bicycles, that might be out late at night, too.
During the daytime, it’s not always easy to tell which streets are well-lit at night. If you aren’t bringing your own light, you definitely need to avoid unlit paths and trails. They can be completely pitch black making it easy to trip up and get hurt.
A hint for what streets are the best lit at night is how busy they are during the day
Larger streets usually have more and brighter street lights that make them a good option for a well-lit path. The trick is then going to be finding a route that will be lit for the most part the whole way. But finding a route is one thing, and knowing what it’s actually like in person is another thing altogether. This brings us to the next point on knowing your path ahead of time.
A map is an excellent tool to plan a route, but don’t let it fool you
Maps don’t always clearly show when sidewalks begin and end. There’s nothing worse than being on a busy road and suddenly being inched a little closer to car traffic when the sidewalk suddenly stops. If it’s your first time running a new route, there’s always a chance of missing a turn or going down the wrong street, too.
There may be other surprises, too
The streetlights may be spaced out farther than you expected. Some may be burned out, too. But it helps to be familiar to some degree with where you are going. You can get some degree of familiarity by looking around on something like Google Maps, but there are alternatives.
You could also build that familiarity is to try walking or running part or all of the route during the day time to scope it out. Consider making a detour to check out part of it when going on a commute or grocery run, too.
It can take time to scope out new routes
Building routes isn’t something you want to rush through. But over time, you’ll find you have more than a few options as you try out different things. This brings us to the last point, rotating through your routes.
It’s about being just a little unpredictable
Nobody likes the idea of being watched or followed. It may seem a little paranoid to worry about others keeping tabs on you, too. The risk of being harassed or attacked while running depends on where you live and a lot of other factors. Nevertheless, it helps with safety to have at least a small degree of unpredictability in what you do. It certainly costs very little to have a few routes to use up your sleeve.
Everyone starts with just one route, of course. But running the same path over and over is predictable. Doing this for a little while is ok, but don’t just stop with one way. Mix it up randomly and choose between a few planned routes you’ve set up for yourself when you set out for your run. Besides, variety is always nice!
But how do I get started?
The best thing to do is to take a look at your local area on Google Maps. Check for a few busier streets that you would expect to be well-lit at night time. Try to see if you can make a convenient loop to make it easy to try out. The distance doesn’t have to be very long — if it’s your first time, try half the running length you are used to in order to try night running on for size.
If there are any streets you are not familiar with, consider checking them out in the day time to see if there are any missing sidewalks. These are the essential elements of planning a route for night running.
Let’s look at an example
Here’s a sample 5K run laid out in Victoria, BC, Canada. I am already familiar with the city, but living anywhere for a short while gives you a feel for the busier roads — and that means more streetlight and sidewalk coverage to help boost safety while night running. Another shortcut to finding busier roads is by looking at local bus routes, as they tend to run on busier streets, too.
The top portion of this example follows Fort Street, which is a fairly busy road during the day. The bottom part follows Fairfield road, which is less busy than Fort but still reasonably busy with traffic (for Victoria!). Connecting them is a segment on the East along Richmond road. One evening, I took a slight detour while running an errand in my car to check out the route. It seemed there was a continuous sidewalk the whole way, and a lot of streetlights, too. So this looks like it could be a handy little 5K route to use for night running in Victoria.
In summary
Using well-lit paths helps keep you visible to others — especially cars and bicycles. But make sure you scope out the route ahead of time, so there are no surprises. A stretch without street lights or a missing sidewalk makes for a rude discovery when you’re out for the first time. Finally, mix up your routes to make sure you aren’t too predictable in your routines.
When we head to the grocery store, not many of us completely wing it without at least some thinking ahead of time. Similarly, when running at night, a little thinking ahead of time will make a big difference in safety.
Next step
Planning your route isn’t the only way to be safe when running in the dark. Read more on why you need more than a flashlight to stay visible here.
