Where do they keep their phones. I'll leave here soon for a training ride on my bike and I will put my phone in a ziplock bag and in my jersey pocket. A lot of the runners I know are also triathletes so when it rains they wear one of their biking jerseys and do the same thing. There are also straps that fit on the upper arm to carry a phone or ipod and some allow you to put the phone in a ziplock bag. Triathletes also have belts which allow carrying water bottles, energy gels and can be used for phones when training.
Runners and triathletes will find a way. When swimming laps I used to see a guy in the pool who would listen to music while swimming laps. He used something called 'aqua-tunes' or something like that. It was a water proof pouch for the music source with waterproof ear plugs and it all was on a belt. You want your phone or tunes bad enough when it is wet, then there is a way.
I recently purchased one of those cellphone armbands myself (see screenshots).
According to weatherunderground, it appears there was some precipitation around the time Ally would have been jogging that day (data is for Oakland County International Airport, the closest location to Holly for which information is available; it’s approximately 18 driving miles southeast of Holly). Total precipitation for the day was 0.92 in.:
Oakland County International, MI History | Weather Underground
Speculation Only:
Earlier on the day of her murder, Ally’s phone goes missing.
When LE arrives at the crime scene after the 911 call, they find her phone, not on her person but rather in the vicinity where the shooter is thought to have been located.
I do not believe we know for sure (do you know,
@Combatmedic2121?), but say, Ally did use an armband, pouch, etc. whenever she would go for a run. However, after the shooting, the phone holder is found at home, indicating to LE that Ally likely did not take a phone with her when she left for her run that day; additionally, she could have contacted someone(s) via FB messenger, Instagram or Twitter DM, etc. from a computer to asked them to let her know if they happened to find her phone, which leads LE to the same conclusion.
Could someone have stolen Ally’s phone to use it as a ruse to get her attention as she ran that day? Could it be that she actually contacted the person who (unbeknownst to her) stole it via DM, and pretending that they just happened to find it (vs stealing), they asked her to meet them at a location near her parents’ house, so they could return it to her? Or could the same person reached out to Ally (even before she contacted them) via DM, telling her they found her phone, and the rest the same as the above?
Would a scenario like that lead LE to believe Ally was likely murdered by someone she knew and not a random killer, theorizing that a complete stranger probably wouldn’t have ready access to her phone (even though a stalker might still be able to get their hands on it)?
As to why Nikki would say Ally didn’t take her phone with her because it was raining that day: Perhaps that is what LE has instructed her to say but without giving her any details; Since she has not been ruled out as a suspect, they wouldn’t divulge such information to her, or any other suspect for that matter, IMO.