How do you feel about running or hiking alone at night? Does it make a difference where you are – in an urban park, or on a mountain? On the heels of her own winter West Highland Way solo run, and an extensive survey of other runners, Keri Wallace explores our fear of the dark, looks at gender differences in learned fears, and suggests some ways to feel safer when we're out at night.

When I wrote the guidebook Running Challenges I noticed that several of the routes didn't have female First-Known-Times, let alone Fastest Known Times (FKTs). In particular there are rarely solo unsupported completions by women, even on popular trails and mountain rounds. As someone who often runs solo and unsupported, this got me wondering why. I started trying to plan a solo unsupported traverse of the Hadrian's Wall Path but was stopped short by the need to run through parts of Carlisle and/or Newcastle in the dark. Urban night running would make me really nervous on my own. If I had someone with me, or even watching out for me along the way, I would feel better – but that wouldn't really be an unsupported run now would it!

In the end, I settled on the West Highland Way because the majority of the trail is remote, so I'd be far less likely to come across someone spurious on my solo travels. I wasn't really worried about meeting a like minded runner or walker, but maybe someone stumbling home from the pub or generally lurking about. I knew I'd feel better once I hit more rural locations, heading for the quiet mountain trails further north.

For long running challenges in the mountains, it would be normal to use daylight hours for sections that are technically demanding or tricky to navigate, but instead here I was planning my schedule around personal safety. With this in mind, I decided to start in Milngavie town centre in the light, and finish in Fort William town centre the enxt day. I reasoned I'd be far happier running the remote parts of the trail in the long night between – 17 hours of dark to be precise.

But yes, let's get it out there: I am afraid of the dark…

With that in mind you might ask why I chose to run the West Highland Way solo and unsupported in winter at all. I suppose it seemed the ultimate challenge for me – one that would push me out of my comfort zone both physically and psychologically. The question was, could I overcome my fear of the dark, and what would I learn about myself along the way?

I don't suffer from nyctophobia (extreme fear of the dark) but I do feel anxious – hyperalert, with a raised heart rate, intrusive thoughts, an urge to panic and sometimes I see things that aren't there; my brain unhelpfully fills in gaps in my night vision with false/scary information!

I feel my fear of the dark often holds me back, and I'm not alone. You don't have to be running through the night to be impacted by this kind of anxiety. In Scotland, we have the longest hours of winter darkness in the UK (17.5h of darkness in Inverness on winter solstice). For many people here, it's dark when they go to work and dark when they get home.

Psychologists agree that as children it's quite normal to be scared of the dark. Most of us eventually grow out of it. Surveys reveal however that 11-23% of people are still afraid of the dark as adults – that's a lot of people! Within this group, women are six times more likely to describe themselves as 'afraid of the dark' than men. Research also shows that women are four times as likely to meet the criteria of a 'phobia' than men and twice as likely to develop a fear/anxiety related disorder. What underpins these sex-based differences?

At first glance you might expect it to be the result of experiential learning.

fear of the dark is a primitive survival instinct, one that even today affects women more than men. Knowledge is power when it comes to challenging and rationalising it

Personal Safety for Runners

Recent UK studies have found that more than two thirds of women have experienced harassment while running. A survey by This Girl Can, showed that nearly half (48%) of women prefer not to be active outside after dark and that 60% worry about the risk of sexual harassment or intimidation. It's therefore common for women to change their running behaviour in the winter, when hours of darkness are longest. we might change our route, move to running on a gym treadmill, or cut back on running altogether. But these studies focus on urban road running. What about trail running in the countryside?

Personally, I feel most afraid in urban areas but I do still feel anxious in quiet, rural areas, where I know the statistical likelihood of being attacked or assaulted is low. Why is that, and do other women feel the same?

If you've ever been a victim of harassment or assault, it's hard to forget and not let it influence your behaviour (and yes, that's 2 out of 3 women!) I was once groped at a crowded race finish and once spat at in the street -both while out running - and I can't even recount all the catcalling. Once, in a rural village in Devon, a young man tried to steal my car. I resisted, but was physically attacked for my efforts, ending up covered in blood and doing what I do best – running away. I felt okay at the time and refused counselling offered by the police, but frustratingly it now niggles away at me. It undermines my sense that an attack is unlikely when I'm out running alone. It makes me think twice when wild camping and I would never feel comfortable staying alone in a bothy. Of course, I know the outdoor community is welcoming and friendly, and reports of attacks or assaults are practically unheard of in the mountains – but if you're already afraid, then you can't run away from it.

Widespread news reporting and personal safety messaging aimed at female runners may also feed into such fears. Advice recommends that women behave like 'prey' at night (i.e. stay vigilant, visible and run together in groups). This isn't only disempowering but invites women to lose faith in the system that's supposed to keep us all safe.

Alongside planning my unsupported WHW run, I decided to try to find out more about why fear of the dark is so prevalent. How might fear of the dark affect the way that male versus female runners experience the outdoors during the darker winter months?

Surprising Survey

In a recent survey we ran at Girls on Hills, over 1000 trail runners, both men and women, were asked to rate their anxiety levels with a score of 1 to 10 (where 1 is 'zero anxiety' and 10 is 'too scared to go at all'), across urban, suburban and rural/remote trails.

Results showed that men were most likely to rate themselves as having 'zero anxiety' (a median score of 1) in all trail running environments, whether urban, suburban or rural. On closer inspection, 12% of men do experience anxiety in urban environments, which reduces to 4% in a rural environment. Overall however, 80% of men said that they don't modify their trail running behaviour at all during the darker months*.

In contrast, the median anxiety score for women is 8/10 (a high anxiety score) for both urban and suburban environments. Women are much more likely to run 'afraid' (score of 8) than not go out at all as a result of anxiety (score of 10). Over half of women said they refuse to modify their trail running behaviours in the winter/dark, despite 75% of respondents scoring above 5/10 on the anxiety scale.

Most surprisingly however, the survey showed that many women rate themselves as 'too scared to go at all' on remote/rural trails at night (the median was a score of 10). It was a surprise to see higher anxiety levels for rural trails than urban trails, but analysis of written responses revealed that the situation is more complex than it first seems.

For remote/rural environments, women tend towards two extremes; women who are uninhibited and feel confident to run solo at night (score 1) and others who admit they are too anxious to run on quiet, rural trails in the dark at all (score 10).

The first group (14% of all women) say they feel confident because it's unlikely they will come across another person; interestingly this isn't so much an absence of fear but rather an absence of potential threat. The second group (17% of all women), is mostly concerned about the risk of an accident, fall or navigation error, and of not being located quickly after getting into difficulty. Ultimately these women still fear for their personal safety but for entirely different reasons. Many said that they would only run rural trails at night with their dog or with company.

Why do so many women feel vulnerable at night? Why do we feel our personal safety is at risk even in relatively safe environments?

*It should be noted that men may be less likely to admit to anxiety than women or give written feedback about their experiences. To help address this, the survey was voluntary, online and anonymous.

Evolution of Fear

Before becoming a running guide, I studied neurobiology and the neural mechanisms of behaviour, and I learned a thing or two about fear.

Fear is a behaviour that helps us avoid danger/risk and prepare for fight-or-flight. It is thought that our fear of the dark evolved because humans have lived as hunter-gatherers for over 95% of our evolutionary history, at a time when the dark would have been a very real threat to our survival. Predators hunted at night and due to humans' relatively poor eyesight in the dark, we would have been vulnerable to attack. People who feared the right things and reacted in the right way, would have survived to pass on their genes, ultimately enabling the survival of future generations. Today this fear of the dark is mainly maladaptive, as we live in a comparatively safe environment, but we have lived this way for mere tens-of-thousands of years - the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Even today our natural instincts are very much the product of our longer evolutionary past.

In primitive societies, rational, helpful fear would have been an advantage to survival but irrational or unhelpful fear would have been a disadvantage. This led to humans evolving the ability to unlearn fears too. This neural process, which is called Fear Extinction, enables us to realise when there's no longer a threat, i.e. when a trigger is no longer predictive of danger. Unlearning fears would have been essential for individuals to continue to function in a hostile and changing environment. During this time however, selection pressures acting on women and men would have differed. It would have been an advantage for women to be more risk-averse than men and prioritise the protection of offspring (so-called parental investment theory). It is this evolutionary process has that has left men and women wired differently when it comes to fear.

Scientific research has revealed significant sex differences in the ways males and females learn and unlearn fear. In a nutshell, females show less fear extinction than males (a process that is regulated by the female sex hormone Oestrogen). It thought that these differences might underpin women's increased susceptibility to fear and anxiety disorders, including fear of the dark.

In summary, fear of the dark is a primitive survival instinct, one that even today affects women more than men.

Knowledge is Power

When we experience fear of the dark, it's really an expression of our fear of the 'unknown', not being able to see what's out there and feeling vulnerable. This is perhaps why it feels worse when there's cover such as trees or ruins, and why you might feel completely unafraid of the dark when accompanied by even one person. In the dark our imagination runs wild and we envisage all our worst fears - but that doesn't mean that they are actually real or likely threats.

Before beginning my solo, unsupported run on the West Highland Way, I knew it would be very unlikely that I would see anyone, let alone cross paths with an axe-wielding misogynist. I told myself that my fear of the dark is normal and I'm reacting the way humans have always reacted. I acknowledged my fear the same way a bungee jumper recognises it, and jumped anyway. It's just biology and it's not as dangerous as it feels, I told myself…

It would seem from statistics that women's fear of running alone in the dark around urban areas is proportional and justified. But in our remote and rural areas, there is less need for trail runners in the UK to feel this way. Knowledge is power when it comes to challenging and rationalising our fear of the dark.

Embracing the Dark

Fear can be a barrier to exploring the trails and mountains in winter but safe and controlled exposure to the dark can help with desensitisation. Here are some practical things that might help us feel safer when trail running in remote/rural areas:

• Purchase a really bright headtorch with plenty of burn time. For my WHW run, I used the Petzl Swift RL (with spare battery), which casts a whopping 1100 lumens. You can carry a handheld torch too if it helps. Carrying a small first aid kit and plenty of emergency equipment will also help you feel confident that you're prepared in case of an accident.
• There are lots of smart phone apps and functions that will allow you to share your location with a friend/partner (e.g. Strava Beacon, Garmin LiveTrack, Find My on Apple etc). 
• Find out which of your local routes have phone signal throughout (use a coverage checker online or recce them in the daytime).
• If you're worried about getting lost or having an accident and not being located then consider purchasing a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB). They are expensive but ideal for when phones might not have signal. Examples include Ocean Signal RescueMe, Garmin inReach and ACR ResQlink.
• It might seem old-school but learning how to navigate with a map and compass (and carrying this basic equipment with you) is ideal for technophobes. It's also one of the most empowering skills you'll ever learn – know where you are and decide where you want to go. There are many skills courses out there, and resources available online.
• If you are trail running in a safe location that experiences low rates of crime, consider distracting yourself from your negative thoughts by running with a dog, music or a phone call. Use a single headphone if you need to keep your wits about you. I even find that talking to a GoPro helps. It gets easier with practice.
• While I'm not a fan of suggesting that women run in groups for their personal safety, joining a club/group or entering events that run through the night is a brilliant way to desensitize yourself to running in the dark. In races, you'll often be wearing a GPS tracker and a team of race organisers will be keeping an eye on you (with emergency first aid services close at hand).
• In the US it's common for women to carry a weapon, spray or alarm when trail running at night (you can even buy 'concealed carry' leggings with built-in holster!) Thankfully this isn't really a thing here in the UK but have you considered a self-defence class to help you feel more confident?
• In the end, it all starts with men as allies. How can men help make women feel safer? This article contains some great advice from Ruth Keely: