Runners cautious, resolved after reported sexual assault in Howarth Park in Santa Rosa

The team run was slated to take off from near the boat ramp at Howarth Park at 9 a.m. Saturday morning. But Santa Rosa High School cross country coach Carrie Joseph started getting texts from concerned parents Friday night.

Santa Rosa Police were reporting a sexual assault had taken place Friday morning in the women’s bathroom near Howarth Park’s lower parking lot on Summerfield Road. A 55-year-old woman, who told investigators she was preparing to go on a walk, said she was leaving the restroom when a man pushed her back into the building and assaulted her.

It reportedly happened at 8 a.m. It was a couple of hundred yards from where Joseph was planning to meet her team Saturday morning.

It was an incident that put into stark relief the differences between a cross country practice and say, basketball practice. A gym has four walls, (optional) locked doors and bright lights. Prep runners, and the coaches who lead them, train in a vast system of hills, gravel roads and rocky trails. Cell service can be spotty. Unlike a soccer practice, it would be nearly impossible for any coach to know where every athlete is at all times. Miles and miles of wooded trails and rocky terrain offers not only a paradise-like running playground, it also presents logistical challenges unheard of in other sports.

And scores of area teams use the connected, three-park system of Howarth, Spring Lake and Trione-Annadel.

So the report of an assault in a highly visible, well-trafficked gateway to that park system - a handful of yards from a row of swing sets and a carousel - unnerved some. But it also strengthened resolve.

Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Marcus Sprague called the incident “very rare. It does not happen all of the time anywhere and it definitely doesn’t happen in Howarth Park.”

Since Aug. 20, 2017 there have been seven calls responding to reports of any kind of assault. Three were deemed shoving matches, one was a small fire near the softball field and one was Friday’s incident.

“I consider it a safe park,” Sprague said. “I would take my family there and I do.”

Joseph used the raised concern as a way to hammer home safety protocols - none of which were not using the park system.

“It’s remarkable how little trouble has happened in the last 20 plus years of running in public,” Joseph said.

On Monday morning at the same time the alleged assault took place just three days prior, a city maintenance worker picked up trash in the playground, a man walked his dog through the parking lot and another unloaded his bicycle from his vehicle. Traffic on Summerfield Road was brisk.

As I talked to Hank Mendibles and Daisy Matthias, who spend their nights in and around the park, a woman in workout gear walked alone into the restroom in question.

“The fact that there could be someone like that among us?” Mendibles said. “It kind of makes me feel uncomfortable as a guy.”

His mom had called him from Southern California to alert him.

“It’s kind of important that we figure it out,” Matthias said.

For Joseph, who had long planned Saturday’s group run, the texts continued to trickle in, all asking versions of the same question: “Is it still on?”

Yes.

“I didn’t change it,” she said. “I just figured I would use it as an occasion to let parents know what we do in terms of trying to keep kids safe.”

Joseph, who has been coaching cross country for two decades, sent out a lengthy email to parents explaining how the coaches approach runner safety: At least three training groups per gender, pre-workout route discussions and communication plans. Plus coaches either ride a bike or run at the back of the pack and man checkpoints.

“We are very intentional and thoughtful when we are out there,” she said. “Being aware is not the same as being paranoid.”

But even so, Joseph said she tweaks protocol as needed. Joseph is rethinking bathroom visits wherever the team is training. Those will likely happen in pairs now.

Montgomery coach Melody Karpinski said she uses out-and-back routes and keeps runners in pace groups so that no one is running alone. She and other coaches also ride a bike to keep an adult near runners.

But like Joseph, Karpinski is more apt to sing the praises of the freedom of a trail run than dwell on worry.

“Mainly we are just looking out for each other,” she said. “I usually worry more about mountain lions and rattlesnakes.”

The ebb and flow of parental concern is not unusual. Karpinski remembers running cross country in high school and it worrying her own mother that she was out running trails.

“I remember my mom made me carry a whistle to practice and I was so upset about it,” she said.

But she too is rethinking some protocol. She doesn’t allow athletes to run with headphones at practice and does allow phones if the runner requests it. Bathroom visits just might be in pairs going forward.

One of the paradoxes of trail running is the lure of freedom from traffic and noise, coupled with how many faces - familiar ones - athletes see when they are training.

“So many teams practice in the park,” Karpinski said. “It never feels like you are isolated.”

In her email to parents Saturday afternoon, Joseph outlined in great detail the team’s typical safety measures.

“They need to know coaches think about this stuff,” she said.

But she closed the email with sentiments about the uniqueness of cross country. The things that make the sport different are the things to celebrate, not be afraid of: Strangers offering encouragement on the trail; sighting turkeys, horses and hikers; spying cross country alums still out there kicking up dirt.

“The world is filled with a billion acts of kindness,” she said Monday. “You don’t want to have people dwell in the place of fear.”

A $2,500 reward is being offered for details leading to the arrest of the suspect in Friday’s alleged assault. The reward is being offered by the Sonoma County Alliance “Take Back Our Community Program.”

Another way to take back our community is to take to the trails. Run them, ride them, hike them. Watch out for yourself and watch out for others.

And keep Joseph’s words to her team and their parents in mind: “The world is full of much more good than it is bad.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”