I suggest you try, when possible, to only do what's legal..

... or, how S and I went to a self-defense class targeted at female marathon runners running the Dick's Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon.

First of all, I would like to thank the people who sponsored the event (Wells Fargo, from what one of the presenters said?), as well as the Pittsburgh Marathon folks. The PM has a huge presence in the community: in no other place have I seen a greater percentage of local, recreational runners choose to do a marathon or half marathon just because their city put on a great race. Having run the Pittsburgh Marathon 3 times, I know the course and the race is well-managed and community-oriented.

When S asked me on our long run on Sunday if I'd like to accompany her to a running self-defense class, I was quick to accept the invitation. First, I run, a lot, much of which I do alone, some of which I do not in the nicest neighborhoods, and some of which I run at night. Second, it seemed like a great "first roommate outing" to partake of, and hanging out with S is always a good time. And finally, though this refers to the first point, I have been assaulted, once while running in Pittsburgh, and once while walking in Chicago, both of which occurred in nice neighborhoods, in broad daylight, and I thought it would probably be good to pick up some tips for how to defend myself against the crazed druggo type that seems drawn to me.

I'll start by mentioning a little bit about the attack that occurred when I was running in Pittsburgh. It was roughly 11 AM; I had 10 miles to run, and I (in my usual summer attire), was wearing shorts and a sports bra. I was soaked in sweat by the first mile, but feeling pretty good as I coasted down the long hill from Squirrel Hill into Greenfield. The streets were gridlocked with traffic, as is common for Pittsburgh anywhere within a 5 mile radius of any tunnel, between the times of yesterday and forever, 5 days a week. When I was crossing a particularly busy intersection, someone in a car yelled a berating comment, which I heard, intentionally did not acknowledge, and continued to run past.

For those of my readers who aren't frequent runners, it is very common that I get heckled while I run, and my fellow runners tell me the same. Quite often, I get yells or comments of encouragement, such as  "You go girl!" or "You're flying"; almost as often I get comments on my attire: "It's too cold for shorts!" or "I like your unicorn shoes!"; I am frequently objectified with: "Dayuuum!", or "It's so nice to see legs again!"; occasionally, drivers yell at me for no apparent reason, and, least frequently, someone says something explicitly negative. This particular time fell into the last two categories simultaneously; it was more crude than usual, but not clearly threatening.

So I continued to run, because if you don't say something nice to me when I'm running, I ignore you or flip you off, depending upon the situation, and in this case, I just ignored it. I continued to glide down the hill another couple of blocks. Suddenly, I heard one footstep behind me and then there were arms grabbing me, one around my torso and the other around one of my legs. Every system in my body went into emergency mode. I flailed my arms and legs, threw my torso forward, began to slap and scratch and kick anything I could reach (later, I found, I had scratched myself pretty well, so I do mean anything).  My body went from covered in sweat and way too warm to feeling as though I'd plunged into an ice bath. Everything slowed down and sped up all at once. I had a million thoughts, each perfectly clear, and none of which I could remember a moment later. I screamed and screamed, "Don't you.... don't you even think about it! Fuck!" over and over and over again for however long this interaction took place. I got a look at the man who had grabbed me: he looked just like my Montana heritage prejudices suggested he would: he was a skinny white guy, covered in tattoos, who looked like he was on meth (MT, by the way, is the source of the Meth: Not Even Once campaign, which, if you haven't seen before, check out these ads).

Fortunately for me, I was so sweaty, I imagine trying to keep hold of my scantily-clad body was at least as hard as keeping hold of a penguin greased with crisco. After a few flails of my limbs, I was able to shake the man free and sprint what I imagine was the fastest 200 meters of my life to a set of stairs up to another major road. I sprinted and sprinted and sprinted without thinking for what felt like only a minute, but when I came to consciousness, I was lying on the ground in a park, 2 miles away, breathing heavily and shaking uncontrollably.

Anyway, perhaps all of this information is not useful for the point at hand, but I was unable to sit down and write this post without first mentioning from where I come on the subject. Most importantly, I was running during the day, in a reasonable neighborhood, not wearing headphones, being generally aware of my surroundings.

So, back to the events of this evening. The seminar started with a young woman telling a story about how she was assaulted when going for a run. She, too, ran during daylight, on a trail she was familiar with and usually had a fair amount of foot-traffic, and didn't wear headphones. She carried her phone with her. After the young woman recalled the event, and how she managed to call 911 with her phone in her pocket, two (ex?) narcotics officers came to the stage to tell the 60-100 women attending the seminar how to be safer when training for the marathon.

I'll give my readers the ClifNotes version of the seminar, and spare you all the obvious "Don't run in a shitty neighborhood, alone, at night, with headphones in." That being said, I know some of us have to do some subset of those things while training. But, all of this applies to anyone who wants to add some precaution to their general wanderings of a city, whether or not you're running.

How to tell if someone is up to something fishy
Look for people who:

• Touch their head or face (such as pinching the bridge of their nose, pulling on their ear, scratching their head, etc etc); people do this when they're gearing up for doing something scary
• Move their hips and body mass into a more assertive, offensive stance
• Moving their hands around the waist area (may be grabbing a weapon from a pocket or waistband)
• The gentleman who was running the seminar said he is often bad at judging or stereotyping people based on cues other than the above behaviours: criminals come in all shapes and sizes, and this was said by a law enforcement officer who later said he thought any woman would be safer if she carried a gun when running

You should always:

• Keep as much space from said suspicious characters as possible. Even an extra 6-12 inches can give you a significant advantage in avoiding and reacting to physical affronts from an attacker (S and I demonstrated this on stage)
• Don't look like an easy target: pay attention to things around you; and I'll say it, even though there was never an explicit statement of this in the seminar: running with headphones outside both makes you less aware and makes you look like an easier target
• Stop chatting with your running buddy if there's someone you're nervous about. Listening to another conversation makes it harder for you to react to physical attacks. More generally, pay attention when there's something suspicious going on around you

Some Points that don't fall into the above categories:

• "Do you think two crackheads have an easier time robbing a store than one?", aka "bad guys work in pairs"
• We as people, and women in particular, are socialized to expect the best from people, and to be friendly rather than to be assertive, confrontational, and to protect ourselves, so we must fight these tendencies when there are suspicious characters about

Verbal Strategies when there are suspicious characters around:

When someone you don't like starts to approach you,

•  first request space as you come nearer, for example, "Will you wait for me to pass on your left?"
• There are several innocuous reasons people would ignore that request (they didn't hear, they thought it was unreasonable to request this, they didn't understand what you wanted, or they themselves are having an emergency)
• But, if they ignore the request and you're still feeling unsafe and they continue to approach, you can demand space, in a louder, more assertive way, such as "Stop! Let me go around you! Back up!"
• If they continue to "encroach", if you feel comfortable with profanities, now might be the right time to show how serious you are using an F-bomb. But use them appropriately: better to say "Back the fuck up!" than "Back up, motherfucker!". 
• This set of things is an example of a more general model: one should start with reactions that are mild and polite, and as safety becomes more of an issue, escalate to more serious responses

Some small physical things one should keep in mind, though the class was not about physical confrontation:

• Drop your weight into a more stable, lower-center-of-gravity stance if you know you're going to "get physical" with an attacker
• Bring your hands up towards your neck or face
• Both of these should (a) make it harder to knock you over, and (b) make it easier for you to protect your head and face, and thus protect yourself from being knocked unconscious. 
• Be assertive and confident; if you look scared, the attacker will be emboldened
• The jury is out on eye contact. Some eye contact is good, for showing confidence, but too much can have unusual interpretations within some gang cultures.
• There was some discussion about weapons. People asked what they should carry, if anything, and there was some disagreement about this point. Someone asked about brass knuckles, to which the presenter suggested that we try, when possible, to only use methods of protection which are legal.

In the end, I think this information is useful, but wouldn't have helped me in the instance I was attacked nor the woman who started the seminar with her account. I guess I should probably take a more in-depth, physical-attack oriented self defense class. Thanks again to everyone who put this on!