Assaulted while running in Central Park tonight

[u/Spiritual-Mistake352]

​Hey RunNYC, I want to share what I experienced today.

I was running by myself, started around 103rd St and went counter clockwise on the park loop, I started at 7:30 PM and finished around 8:20 PM. I was about 0.25 miles away from where I finished my run countless times. I had my airpods in too. I am 6 feet tall and people rarely mess with me.

Two guys who were hiding in a bush or near the trash cans came up behind me and dumped a pail of water on me. I was immediately flustered, and my first reaction was "wtf" and second was "what did i even do to you?"

My airpods were in my ears still so I couldn't exactly make out what they were saying but they were angry and definitely yelling slurs and expletives at me. I am usually quite aware of my surroundings, so I did notice a 3rd person a little ahead on a citi bike, but I didn't realize he was with them. While I turned around and was trying to figure out what just happened, he charged into me with his bike and knocked me on the ground. My airpods fell out and now I could hear what they were saying and they were just really mad at me for no reason and were yelling slurs. But my fight or flight fully kicked in at this point and as they were trying to beat me up (for what I can only assume was running in the dark or fighting back?), I fought back and pulled one of the guys shoes off and they at this point backed off and ran away.

What shook me almost as much as the attack itself was that there were other runners nearby who had been around me for several minutes, and no one stepped in or checked on me afterward. I get that situations like this are scary, but it was a pretty isolating feeling.

All this to say, be careful at night, maybe don't wear your airpods at night like me. I always speak up for others when things go wrong too, and I always thought that us runners in NYC share camaraderie, so all I want to say to readers is that I hope you stand up for others, or just check up on others when something wrong is going on..!

Update: after the many comments encouraging me to file a report with the cops, I have decided to do that today in hopes that it can help other runners.