Trail Running Safety
What you need to know when running in the great outdoors
What you need to know and what to take with you to stay safe and injury-free on t he t rails t his season.
AFIRST GLANCE, TRAIL running is deceptively simple. Throw on some running clothes, toss a few things in a vest, find a trail and go, right? That may be fine for a five-kilometre jaunt, but veterans know that for longer distances, they need to prepare for a diverse range of hazards. That preparation doesn’t always prevent an accident, but it can often reduce the impact.
Take it from Andrea Binder-Leckie. She was running a section of the High Rockies Trail west of Calgary, Alta., when, “I just tripped over my own feet. I went down like a four-yearold Superman.” She got up and kept running until she realized her knee was bleeding – badly. She’d hit a sharp piece of shale, and when she pulled down her tights to examine the injury, she could see bone.
Fortunately, Binder-Leckie has a lot of backcountry experience and was running with a seasoned crew. Her cool-headed buddy, Cindy Kathol, has wilderness first aid training, and she helped assess the situation and devise a plan. They didn’t have a first aid kit, so Kathol used a running buff and jacket to dress Binder-Leckie’s wound. While Kathol evacuated Binder-Leckie, another runner dashed to the trailhead to co-ordinate t ransportat ion. “Getting her out, getting her fixed up… went really well…and she got out on her own,” Kathol says.
A visit to the hospital revealed the rock had missed vital tendons in Binder-Leckie’s knee by millimetres, and the gash took 16 stitches to repair. Despite the damage, she was back training in six weeks.
Binder-L eck ie took home one obvious lesson: “Carry a small first aid kit, however small that might end up being – at least it’s something.” She says, “Have some knowledge to use it… as well.” She also admits to another poor choice. Binder-Leckie is a selfdescribed “tripper” and usually runs with hiking poles. However, no one else was taking them that day, so she left her poles behind. Now she says, “If I could go back, I would have gone with my gut, instead of following what everybody else is doing.”
When asking other experienced runners and safety experts for their advice, they invariably say that trail running safety is more complicated than what you carry in your vest. To be better prepared for longer, more challenging runs, trail runners need to consider the following questions.