Find Your SAFE Place

Welcome to BibRave SAFETY Month!

I know, I know – National Running Safety Month is in November – everyone knows that (everyone?). But after “falling back” and freeing ourselves from the shackles of daylight savings time, we’re now stuck running in the dark way more often. After logging many dark (and wet) runs here in Portland, we decided to start safety month a bit early, and frankly, when safety awareness made more sense (at least to us).

So for the month of February, along with our awesome partners AfterShokz and Brilliant Reflective, we’ll be bringing you a bunch of specials all with different takes on running and safety. To kick things off, we’ll be doing a “Be Prepared” Facebook Live on February 7th, where Jessica and I will discuss different tips and gear to help keep your head on a swivel while out on a run.

Then we’ll be hosting four Twitter convos – separate from our weekly #BibChats – all about safety and awareness. Topics include stories, tips, and social sharing around our topics: Being Prepared, Being Aware, Being Seen, and Being Open. We’ll be inviting you to share your war stories from the run, best practices and “good-god-don’t-do-what-I-did” stories, plus we’ll be sharing a few scares of our own. Yes, there will be dog bites, other wild animals, and cautionary tales to keep us all on our toes.

Next, we’re very excited to introduce The BibRave Bonus Mile: Safety Edition (remember the Leadville Podcast Episode? The Bonus Mile will be like that – longer form and more in-depth, with narration, interviews, and on-site reporting) – coming to wherever you get your podcasts on Wed., Feb. 21. We’ll take you on a dark, early-morning run through Portland where we get the dish on what’s safe, what’s not, and what everybody ACTUALLY does to stay safe (not just what they say they do, or say they should do).

Remember the heroic, inspiring “Not today, motherf*cker!!” Kelly Herron, who fended off an attacker in a bathroom along her running path? She’ll also be on The BibRave Bonus Mile to share her story and what she’s learned – both from the experience and from the public reaction.

What would you do if you slipped on the ice and broke your ankle during an icy run? Would you crawl to try and find help? Would you sit and hope someone found you… EVENTUALLY? We’ll have that story and more on The BibRave Bonus Mile: Safety Edition.

And lastly, but not leastly (huh?), throughout the month we’ll be featuring blog posts from BibRave Pros sharing stories about how to stay safe on the run, must-have gear and approaches they use, and probably a few near-miss stories thrown in for good measure.

Safety is something that’s easy to pay lip service to, but to then go on and ignore. If we’re honest, most of us don’t do a lot of the SUPER easy and obvious things to stay safe. Hopefully all of our stories will help you to think just a bit harder about safety, what neglecting it can mean, and how big of a difference just a few small changes can make.

Enjoy!