I don’t know if you’d heard this, but exercise is good for you, according to a new study. Unfortunately, lots of women are giving up on it because of fears for their safety. I’m one of them. And I really miss it.
Research by This Girl Can, a campaign run by Sport England, has identified what it calls an exercise “enjoyment gap” between men and women. It found that three in 10 women have experienced harassment while exercising, mostly in parks or on the street, and that fear and rage is driving them back to their sofas. I used to go running in parks and streets, and for many years it made me so happy. I was slow and stupid-looking and never went far, but the day I clocked up 1,000 miles on my running app; the first time I ran six miles in a row, on my birthday; seeing herons and deer – they were moments of joy. Sometimes, when nobody was looking, I would run down a hill with my arms in the air and pretend that I was flying.
