Running/Jogging in Rome

Safe for not getting mugged: yes. Safe for traffic: take your chances or find a park or something.

Yes, it's safe though the side walk can be terrible in some spots, I'm always worried about twisting an ankle.
How many days are you going to be in Rome? If you are going to be there a while then look into getting a gym membership (they have sign up fees and they usually as for a dr's certificate), otherwise, just do as you are planning to do, get up early and run, jogging has become a much more widespread hobby so people won't stare at you like they used to.

Consider jogging in the Villa Borghese, a large public park in central Rome. It has lots of pedestrian-only walkways and paths, and traffic on the paved roads should be light.

I can't think of a better thing to do on vacation than to go running through the city in the morning! I always see things that I don't during the rest of the day, and often find cafes or stores to visit later in the day, when they're open.

I've found that, even in Rome, there's not a huge amount of traffic early in the morning (depending on where you're running, of course). Assuming you're a female, as I am, I feel much more comfortable and safe running on streets and sidewalks early in the morning than I would in a park that I'm not familiar with.

The streets I run on mostly don't have much vehicular traffic at 7 or so, so I run in the street (instead of the sidewalk); if a car comes, I switch to the sidewalk. All along the river, there are wide sidewalks, though you do have to cross a street every couple of blocks or so.

We always stay near Piazza Navona. Mostly, I run from there over to the river. Ponte Sant' Angelo (the bridge with all the statues) is pedestrian-only. I've run across that, around Castel Sant Angelo and all the way to St. Peters. I've run up and down along the river. I've run around Piazza Navona (though that only takes 1-2 minutes). On our last trip, I ran from Piazza Navona up to Piazza del Popolo, passing Are Pacis and Augustus' mausoleum on the way - that was beautiful, too, and few cars (that was on a Sunday morning).

Sounds like you may be staying at a chain hotel in Rome--if so, most have running routes either at the hotel or attached to their website. Traffic is a challange to get through in the city.

Jackie, On several different trips, I have run early in the morning on the sidewalks - it's great. Just like Lexma said. Also, in the park and around Circus Maximus. If you get going early enough, you will love it.
Jim

This topic reminds me of a chapter in the excellent Adam Gopnik book, Paris to the Moon..

Living as an expat in Paris in the late 1990s he talks about the difficulty in finding a gym/fitness center like he had in NYC. Very funny.

He also talks about jogging every morning in a park. He said it was a few police and the rest were Americans.

He tells it (much) better than me.

I agree - I see few runners in Europe, and based on the attire, many of them are Americans.

The Italians that I have seen running, seem to run very slowly, no matter what the perceived fitness level of the person looks to be. (And not that I run very quickly.) I guess it's just a cultural thing.