Guide Running: An Explaination

The question I get asked the most when I tell people that I run is, not unreasonably, how?

For those who don’t know, my sight level, or lack of it, amounts to light and dark perception only. This means I can wake up in the morning and see how light it is outside, always useful if I’ve overslept in the winter. If a light in a room is especially bright then I can pick that out, and on a particularly bright day I can make out shadows and large objects, such as buildings, although only if I’m close up.

In short, what I can see is not a lot, and is certainly no use when it comes to running.

To my knowledge there is no official method of guiding a blind runner at International level. There are rules, such as the guide must never be ahead of the person their guiding, think of it as like
straying offside in football. If the guide crosses the finishing line ahead of the runner, even if only by a fraction of a body part, then, as I have found out through experience, you’re disqualified.

How person A guides person B and what they are attached to each other by is, within reason, down to what feels most comfortable.

I have heard of occasions at fun runner level where the blind runner chooses to hold the elbow of the person guiding them. Internationally I would imagine this would be against the rules since the guide would be in front of their runner, and my personal opinion is that this also limits your arm movement and, as a result, means you inevitably don’t go as fast as you might. At fun running level if this is how the blind person feels most comfortable then great, but it’s not something I would ever do.

My preferred way is very simple. I’ve taken one of those sweatbands that go around the head and tied a knot in the middle to create two smaller loops. The guide holds one loop and I hold the other. This allows the guide to retain control when necessary, whilst giving enough room for the arms to move in a relaxed way.

I’ve no idea who thought of this, it was introduced to me by an excellent guide who I raced with during my time with the Great Britain blind athletics squad in the late nineties.

We often hear about footballers with random superstitions, coming out of the tunnel last, wearing a certain colour pants, not putting their shirt on until they get into the tunnel and so on. I have two guide bands which I use, one of these has a loop slightly smaller than the other. Let's just say I always try and race with that one, and always hold the smaller loop. Oh, and the knot in the middle must point forwards: all as important to my success or failure as training and recovery, ahem!

Once someone has seen how the guide and runner are connected, the other question I encounter a lot is, how do I actually guide you? What they’re getting at is, how do they control me, what information do they need to give, how do they avoid bouncing me off trees and lamp posts and so on?

The answer to this is just as simple. Worn me about curbs, tree roots, speed humps and anything else I might fall over, but that aside, go with your instinct. I like to let the guide give me as much information as they feel comfortable with, after all, it’s their responsibility to make sure I finish my run in one piece. If for piece of mind they want to tell me more then that’s absolutely fine by me.

I’ve been extremely lucky in the last couple of years. Mid 2008 my regular running partner moved to another part of London, making meeting up to train much more difficult. Seeking Google’s assistance I searched for running clubs in South West London and, as luck would have it,
The Stragglers came out top of the list.

Two things stood out. Their closeness to where I live, the club meet at the
Hawker Centre in Kingston, and a line I saw on their site describing them as “a drinking club with a running problem” – perfect!

So, having explained how I run, here are a few performance stats for anyone interested, distance followed by personal best.

5K: 21:08
10K: 44:03
8 miles: 58:25
10 Miles: 73:23
Half marathon (13.1 miles): 1 hour 36:36

I have run some of these distances faster, during longer races, for example when setting the 10 mile time listed, I reached 8 miles quicker than the race time I've given. I don't count mile splits within races as personal bests, even though technically they are.