In the 2023 adidas commercial “The Ridiculous Run,” a young woman steps into a dark urban street to start a night run. She opens her phone to see her location, and then joins a group of other women flanked by motorcycles, cars, and even a uniformed guardian on a horse.

This may look ridiculously unnecessary, the commercial tells us, but it’s no less absurd than the 92% of women who feel unsafe when they run. That statistic, which comes from a widely shared adidas survey of 9,000 runners across nine countries, is more than just a number for Dena Lewis, an Atlanta-based entrepreneur and ultrarunner.

Lewis experienced her first assault in 2010 while jogging a mile from her home. The same man showed up at her house 3 days later. Shaken by what had happened to her, she stopped running for a year.

“The world felt scarier,” she told GearJunkie. “I remember putting on my shoes and thinking, ‘I would literally pay someone to run with me right now’.”

And that’s exactly the service Lewis is now offering through Running Mate, an app she says is “like Uber for runners.” With a growing group of on-call running partners vetted by background checks, Lewis has essentially turned the premise of adidas’ commercial into a possible solution for anyone looking to stay safe while running.

The app is still new, launching in seven major U.S. cities in 2024, including Austin, Boston, Tampa, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Charleston, S.C.

App users must pay about $25 per run, and it’s currently most popular among women travelers who want some extra protection while running in another city, Lewis said. But she’d love for the service to eventually be free for any woman who wants it.

“It’s my mission to keep people safe,” Lewis said. “I don’t ever want a woman to have to go through what I went through.” 

Running Mate: How It Works

If you’ve ever used an app from the gig economy, be it Uber, DoorDash, or Instacart, then you’ll likely grasp Running Mate pretty quickly.

Once you’ve downloaded the free app, a simple interface starts the background check process. It’s a mandatory step for both runners and the “running mates” who get paid to show up. You’ll also need to make a profile, which allows runners and partners to view a few key details, like running pace and age.

It’s possible to request a run on short notice, which comes with a 15-minute threshold for meeting a partner. But most of the app’s runs are scheduled ahead of time, according to Lewis. Users can set their desired run location and see the available “mates” for that area. Run times can vary but don’t usually last more than an hour.

While a majority of those requesting a partner are women (70%), the other 30% of users are men, though they may have different reasons, according to Lewis.

“The men who are signed up as runners just want a running buddy. It’s not about safety,” Lewis said. “The men who have signed up as mates are often concerned about someone in their family, like a mother or a sister … I like the fact that we have so many men signed up on our platform.”

‘We Take It for Granted’

CT White “isn’t the fastest,” he said, but he loves the community that he’s found among runners in St. Petersburg, Fla. In just a year, he went from a slow walker to a regular runner to a member of the Pinellas Running Club’s executive board.

He realized that running has helped so many people “find themselves,” including himself, and he thinks everyone deserves that opportunity.

“Protecting access to being outside is essential to our mental health,” he told GearJunkie this week. “I see this app and I think, ‘Yes, I want my people to feel that way’.”

As Lewis works to grow Running Mate’s presence, she’s building partnerships with grassroots running groups like the Pinellas Running Club and local leaders like White.

The app is already available in nearby Tampa, and White says he wants to help build the network of “mates” necessary to make it viable in St. Petersburg as well. He related a story about his best friend in Tampa, a woman runner who has told him stories of men following her on motorcycles or sending online messages about finding her after seeing Strava posts.

“As men, we take it for granted. We don’t have to think about going running at night alone,” said White, a self-described 6-foot-5 giant. “Some of these women are shook for days from these things. I’ve seen it. It can seem harmless, but it’s not.”

The numbers bear that out.

A 2021 RunRepeat.com survey of 3,774 people found that nearly 46% of women runners have experienced harassment. Women runners are also three times as likely to endure that harassment than men, according to the same data. Of the 38% of women who reported harassment in the adidas survey, half said they’d been followed or received sexist comments.

“What kind of world do I want to leave for my nieces?” White said. “If we have the ability to allow women to feel safe the way we feel safe, we have a duty to do that.” 

A ‘Sweet Spot’ Among Travelers

Running mates like White, who get paid about $10-15 a run through the app, are 60% men and 40% women. There’s also a pretty equal pool of both runners and potential partners. Of the 1,664 current users, about 55% are mates and 45% are runners looking for a partner.

So far, the app has found a “sweet spot” among women travelers, Lewis said. While Lewis doesn’t expect most women to use the app more than three to five times a month, more frequent users are usually female travelers accustomed to running 3-5 miles outdoors several times a week.

“That’s typically when women want to use a service like this,” she said. “If they’re going to pay a fee for a gym close by, they’d probably rather be outside anyways.”

But safety isn’t the only reason to use Running Mate. Many women bow out of running clubs because they don’t feel comfortable, Lewis said, and prefer a “transactional process” for finding partners.

Regardless of the reason women use it, Lewis hopes to grow the app’s availability to more cities. She’s also spearheading the Runner Safety Summit, an ongoing series of events that educate women on self-defense.

Ultimately, she’d like to make enough corporate partnerships to keep paying “mates,” while making Running Mate completely free to users. Given how receptive the community has been so far, Lewis feels optimistic, she said.

“I just was not expecting to have the overwhelming response that we get and continue to get,” Lewis said. “Women are saying thank you for giving us a voice.”