She Fought Off an Assault on a Run — Here's Why She Teaches Self-Defense Now

At the workshop, she'd learned that making noise and fighting back could deter an attacker. "They can think that you're not worth the trouble, basically," Kelly said. When she opened her mouth to scream, she told POPSUGAR, the first words out were, "Not today, motherf*cker!" Then, she said, "I just started trying to fight back."

She started to claw at her attacker's face, gaining confidence when she saw he was starting to bleed. "I remembered from class that you don't have to throw the perfect punch," she said. "Just take hard bone to soft places. So I used my forearm to hit him in the side of the head, and it was actually kind of working." But Kelly was taking blows to the face. Her grip on consciousness started to slip.

Then she heard a voice in her head, the same one that had kicked in near the end of half-marathons she'd run — "when you just have a little bit further to go, and you're just totally spent," she recalled. "It was like, 'Come on, Kel. You've got this. Don't give up. Keep going.'"

With one last surge of adrenaline, Kelly slid out from under the bathroom stall where he'd cornered her and sprinted out the door. With the help of a few passersby, she locked the attacker in the bathroom and called the police. He came out without a fight, bruised and bleeding — "I felt good about that," Kelly said.

Kelly went to the hospital; in her state of shock, she remembered telling the paramedics, "I can just run there. I still need to get six miles in." The physical wounds, though, were brutal. Kelly needed stitches on her face, was bruised all over her body, and sustained a lower back injury.

Getting attacked on a run was Kelly's worst nightmare, she said. Her self-defense knowledge was the tool that helped her fight back physically, but Kelly can also pinpoint where the mental strength came from, too: running, and especially racing.

"It really was like the end of a half-marathon," she said. "That's the best I can describe it. You're running and running, and you hit mile 11, and you're done." When she felt herself weakening and wanting to give up, Kelly relied on the same positive self-talk strategies she used during tough runs. She compared it to that painful, pivotal moment during a race when you can either give up or keep running.

"I think we all have that warrior inside of us who takes over when we're in a life-threatening situation," Kelly said. She knew she had to stay positive and not give up, because if she'd lost consciousness, she said, "It would've been over."

Kelly's story went viral because of the way she chose to share it: a striking Instagram post featuring a picture of the bathroom, her battered face, and a screenshot of her GPS tracker, which had recorded her frantic escape.

Initially, Kelly was driven to share her story out of frustration with the way it had been reported on. "The article that came out the next day was just like, 'Woman attacked in bathroom, punched 7 times, and escapes.' And I hated it," she said. The point of her story, Kelly thought, was not just that she'd survived but how she'd survived. She'd taken self-defense class and used what she'd learned to save her own life.

"It was really important to me to let people know that I wasn't lucky, even though some people insist that I was. I was prepared, and I fought like hell to get out of that situation," she told POPSUGAR. She stressed the importance of physical preparation, like taking a self-defense class, as well as mental: running through that scenario and deciding on a plan of attack. "You have to give yourself a fighting chance by arming yourself with the knowledge of self-defense," Kelly said. By sharing her story, she could encourage others to learn how to protect themselves, too.

Yet, even as news outlets picked up her story and commended her strength, the aftershocks of the assault hit Kelly hard. "People were like, 'You're such a badass, you're so strong.' And I didn't feel that way at all," she said.

She was depressed and dealing with PTSD from the attack. Kelly cut back on work hours, was going to therapy, and had a support system, but the anger she felt at her attacker was all-consuming. "I couldn't focus on anything else," she said. "I didn't feel happy, I didn't feel sad. I couldn't cry. All I could feel was anger and depression."

In the midst of that turmoil, Kelly was still trying to train for her marathon. "I kept running," she explained, "because I was so determined not to let this guy take anything from me. Overly determined, to my detriment, really."

An injury finally forced her to take a break and focus on self-care. It was the best thing that could've happened, Kelly said. She set her sights on a later race, the 2017 Chicago Marathon, which she completed that October with her mom. That, along with helping to coach a "Couch to 5K" class for new runners, renewed her love for running.

In March 2018, Kelly appeared in court to give a victim impact statement, looking her assailant straight in the eye. Putting the impact of the attack into words felt healing in a way that nothing else had.

Her attacker went to prison, and in July 2018, Kelly completed a leg of a group relay race that, when she'd attempted it the year before, had triggered a PTSD attack. This time, she said, it was the final push that helped her let go of the assault and its hold on her. Two days later, she received word that her attacker had died in prison.

"I let it go on that run. I became whole and got through it," she said. "It wasn't even him dying that did it." The relief was still intense. He was out of her life forever, and even more powerfully, he could never hurt anyone else. Six months later, Kelly finished her second 26.2 at the Honolulu Marathon with a personal-best time.

Since the assault, Kelly's battle cry — "Not today, motherf*cker" — has become her business, Not Today. Through Not Today, she now coteaches corporate self-defense workshops, both for runners and for general city safety. They're the same kind of classes that helped her survive, and she teaches them alongside the trainer Jordan Giarratano from Fighting Chance Seattle, who originally taught her those skills. "I felt like I had this higher calling to do this," Kelly said. "To empower women and try to give people the same chance that I had, that helped me survive."

Kelly is working on her running coach certification and, in the meantime, still pursuing her own running goals. This Spring, she'll try to run a half-marathon in less than two hours, and in the Fall, she's looking to break five hours in the Atlantic City Marathon. "I'm trying to keep in mind that I'm making good progress," Kelly said. "I'm trying to be patient and realize that getting back just takes dedication and time."