Beating The Barkley Marathons or Covid confinement? Which is harder...
Time to catch up with our latest content from wild swimmer Rachel Heley to the King of the EU Marathon, Mike Harley - as well as our women's safety when running special
Itβs been quite the week at Running Tales HQ, with both Michelle and I confined to barracks having contracted Covid.
Fortunately, we manged to do so just as the Barkley Marathons came around - and what a race it was this year with three finishers and fantastic performances from Brits Jasmin Paris and Damian Hall.
There might not be any TV coverage to enjoy, but anyone who has spent three days refreshing Keith Dunnβs Twitter feed knows not everything is about pictures.
There has been plenty happening on the podcast and on here as well, so hereβs our quick reminder of the Running Tales week that wasβ¦
The podcast:
We have had three very different stories on the Running Tales Podcast over the last seven days.
First up, we spoke to adventurer and wild swimmer Rachel Heley.
While running has been with Rachel for most of her life, she's always fell tantalisingly short of any goals - loving it nevertheless.
If you like what we do at Running Tales, please consider donating to help us keep going:Β https://www.buymeacoffee.com/stepforward
Sheβs always been partial to swimming as well, but it was during the pandemic that she discovered βwild swimmingβ.
We spoke to Rachel about the benefits of cold water swimming, including mood enhancement and muscle recovery - as well as how to take part in the activity safely.
We also spoke about her adventure clothing line, and why she called it Wild Moose!
You can visit Wild Moose at this link, or on Instagram search for wildmoose_uk
We also spoke to Mike Harley, who - inspired by one of his oldest friends - ran a marathon race in all 27 European Union member states to raise awareness and funds for Invest in ME, an independent charity which funds research into what is a severe and debilitating illness.
Running Tales spoke to Mike about why he took on the challenge, the logistics of doing marathons across Europe, his favourite races and how he was inspired by talking to people with ME in the cities he visited.
You can still sponsor him at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/mikeseumarathons
In between, those two episodes we published a special Running Tales podcast looking into womenβs safety while running.
Every day, in every part of the world, women are being harassed and abused by men while out running.
A recent survey commissioned by Adidas and taking in 9,000 women from the US, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, United Arab Emirates, China, Japan and South Korea, found nine out of 10 of those questioned were concerned about their safety while running.
The list of issues women can face ranges from cat calling, body shaming, wolf whistles, verbal abuse and heckling to indecent exposure, sexual attention and physical contact.
Worse, women all to often face the daunting prospect of being approached or followed by potential predators, or of being attacked while out running.
In the very worst cases, women have been raped or killed for committing the 'crime' of exercising near a man.
High profile cases such as those of Ashling Murphy in Ireland and Eliza Fletcher in America, both tragically murdered while out running, have garnered media attention - but is the world any closer to solving the issue, and who's job is that anyway?
Our roundtable discussion features three women runners who have all experienced abuse and harassment while out running:
Michele Heller: From Illinois in the US, Michele is a keen runner who has completed marathons included Boston, Chicago, New York and London. As a mother with a young child, Michele often runs very early in the morning, when it is dark, in order to be ready for the day when the rest of her family wake up.
Dr Ashley Morgan: From Cardiff in Wales and AKA The Doc from The Running Punks, Dr Ashley Morgan has been running for 35 years - and has experienced male harassment throughout that time. The Doc is a regular commentator on women's safety and the patriarchy, and one of those behind the Twitter hashtag #changethediscourse, which attempts to get people to think and talk about the issue differently.
Angie Skinner: From Chattanooga in Tennessee, America, Angie started running in 2014 for mental health benefits. She is originally from Memphis, close to where Eliza Fletcher was killed, and regularly receives harassment while out running - to the point where she will arm herself with pepper spray and a go guarded ring (a plastic serrated-edge self-defence weapon) for her own safety.
In what is a wide-ranging discussion, we spoke about everything from their own experiences of harassment and abuse, victim blaming, the potential for women runners to arm themselves for protection, whether it is safe to run in the dark, how men should behave towards female runners and what men can do to be an ally.
Substack:
On the website this week, we spoke to Tennessee resident Angie Skinner about how she wouldn't feel safe going out alone without her "arsenal" of self-defence weapons.
The article was the first in what will be a series of pieces based on our podcast special on womenβs safety while running.
You can read it in full here:
You can also read about Mike Harleyβs 27 European Union marathons mission in our latest article, Conquering Europe: The marathon man raising awareness of ME.
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