Championing Women’s Running & Safety with Welsh Athletics
In October 2025, we were proud to feature as part of Welsh Athletics Own the Night campaign, empowering women and increasing confidence to continue to be active from Autumn onward, as the evenings get darker.
Our recent report found that 93% of those surveyed had experienced some form of harassment when running, highlighting the urgent need to address the culture that allows public sexual harassment to go unchallenged. Own the Night aims to do just that: raising awareness of women’s safety and ensuring that running is accessible and safe for all that want to participate.
As part of the campaign, Welsh Athletics launched a series of webinars to educate running communities and the wider public on allyship and practical ways to support women - one of their key aims. We partnered with them to deliver our webinar, Sexual Harassment as a Barrier to Running and Exercising in Public Spaces, to run clubs, gym leaders, runners, and anyone interested in learning more. The key themes we discussed included:
Understanding public sexual harassment, including the nuances of who experiences it and its impacts.
The role that run clubs have in challenging harmful attitudes and behaviours.
Responding to disclosures with empathy and understanding.
Practical steps on prevention and creating clear safeguarding policies.
The content for this webinar was first developed at the start of 2025, using real testimonies of public sexual harassment while running to shape the material. When we put a call out on social media for our audience to share their experiences, we received over 80 submissions in just a few days.
This webinar first launched in May, with our sports campaign ambassador Bethan Taylor-Swaine on the delivery team. Afterwards, we received countless comments from attendees highlighting its positive impact, along with the need for this content to reach even more people.
“I was watching this with my partner, and his biggest confusion was why women could feel ‘embarrassed’ or ‘ashamed’. The team did an amazing job of explaining how societal pressure places the blame & responsibility on women.”
“The webinar was so informative. How do we get more eyes on this and more people open to learning? Particularly men.”
“I'm going to share what I've learned with the other leaders in my running community.”
“It was so nice to feel seen and heard and to be taken seriously and understood. More people need to hear and understand the issues in this educational and professional way.”
Visit our Sports page to download our run club guidance or get in touch if you are interested in our tailored training and consultancy.
