Welcome to TBH – To Be Honest – Capsule’s monthly column with our columnist and old pal, Brodie Kane! This month, Brodie is getting serious about why she started a solo girls run club, so women don’t have to run alone.
And for her previous columns, click here!
So I started a run club. Groundbreaking, I know. I’ll tell you originally how it started because it was actually just a little bit of a laugh between me and one of my best mates I run with, Kris. Now, it’s actually taken on a whole new meaning and it’s actually bloody important.
Kris and I were running as we do many days of the week, and we’ve always had little brain storms as single girls, how we can find eligible men out at some of the running events we do. Because lo and behold every time we go to a running event they emerge out of the woodwork and we’re like “where have you been and where are you hiding and are you single?” (to ourselves, not to them haha).
‘It’s not about pace, it’s not about distance, it’s about women coming together to share this part of our lives together.’
We’ve often thought of ways we could get the big running events on board to have some sort of mechanism in which we could shamelessly declare we are single (different coloured bibs, a ribbon or something on our shorts). It is so damn hard to meet guys in normal settings (you know how I feel about the apps – straight to the bin), and everyone always patronisingly tells us “we’ve got to put ourselves out there”. Well thanks Linda, we fucking know. This is us trying!
Anyway I digress. So we’re running along and we’re brainstorming about how cool it would be to start a single girls run club, and lure in all the single girlies for a cool run club and we can go on the adventure of scouring the planet for decent men whilst keeping fit and health and happy at the same time. Seems like a brilliant idea.
But then we got a few messages from our non-single wāhine saying things like “Oh please don’t make it just for single girls, I would love to have some other women to run with”. “I would love to not have to run alone”.
Boom. There it was. It became apparent immediately that this needed to be more than just the singles – this needed to be for all women. I would love to have some other women to run with. I would love to not have to run alone.
I’m going to get really serious for a moment. Because when you’re a woman and you’re out running alone, there is absolutely always an armour up. When you’re a woman and you’re out running alone, there are routes you would simply not take alone. When you’re a woman and you’re out running alone, if it’s dark you best be right out in the open. When you’re a woman and you’re running alone, you often make sure you’ve got something that could protect you/act as a weapon (a dog lead or keys).
When I was growing up at Waikuku Beach, a woman was out running and was attacked, and abducted by repeat sex attacker, Devon Charles Bond. He had been watching and stalking her in the bushes while she was running her daily loop down at the Ashley River. He punched her, dragged her to his car, and started driving. She fought hard to get away, so he tied her hands with her top and put her into the boot of his car. Thankfully, she managed to release the boot and jump from the moving car without Bond knowing. She was able to get help at a nearby house.
Weeks later, he was found by police and admitted attacking the woman with the intention of raping her. This absolutely rocked our little community. Knowing this man was out there watching her, in a place so many of us used recreationally on a daily basis. He was released from jail less than three years later. THREE YEARS.
Shockingly, it wouldn’t be until 2014, when Devon Charles Bond was arrested after a boozy night out and a drunken fight with a police officer, and a DNA match linked him to a 1994 cold case, where he broke into a Christchurch woman’s home and raped her at knife-point.
20 years after this brutal attack, he was sentenced to 12 years and nine months, with a non-parole term of eight years.
If reading that made you feel sick, I feel absolutely sick writing it. I try not to think about what happened at Waikuku too much, and I did spend a lot of time running in that part of my community – often alone – because that’s what I should be able to do. Women get so frustrated when we’re told “you shouldn’t run alone” or “you shouldn’t run at night” as if somehow it’s our fault we’re “putting ourselves in harm’s way”.
As Katie Babbott wrote in the Spinoff a couple of years ago:
This myopic narrative places women at the centre, suggesting these tragic situations are mere happenstance or the result of poor choices, rather than the result of systemic and deeply-rooted misogyny. Perpetration has been so normalised that once again, the onus of prevention is placed on the victims.
A survey by Adidas of runners in nine countries, including the US, last year revealed that 92% of women say they feel concerned for their safety when they go for a run. More than two-thirds of the women surveyed take specific safety precautions, including running alongside a friend or partner who can protect them.
I’m sorry but not sorry for going so dark. But it’s part of why I realised Solo Girls Run Club is so important. How cool to create a space where women of all skill levels of running can come together once a week, early in the morning, and in the darkness of the looming winter nights, and talk and laugh and chat, and connect, and create a beautiful community that has social gatherings, links up for running events, and hey, some of the single girlies may end up meeting Mr Running man along the way too!
We have a Facebook page where women can link up for other runs together during the week or weekend, which is popping off too. If anyone wants to be branch managers for other cities and regions get in touch.
So, while this column went super heavy and has left a knot in my stomach, I genuinely feel so happy and excited about Solo Girls Run Club – we had 65 women across the two sessions in just the second week. And can I just say, we often talk about how hard it is as adults to make new friends – well this is a brilliant way to meet new, like-minded people.
It’s not about pace, it’s not about distance, it’s about women coming together to share this part of our lives together. And it feels wonderful.
There will be runs I continue to do alone, and I have no doubt many of the women in Solo Girls Run Club will do the same, but how nice know we don’t have to.
To hear more of Brodie, jump onto her podcasts The Girls Uninterrupted and Kiwi Yarns
