Runners guiding the guides guiding the runners

A perfect septet of 3 runners, 3 guides and Mark who looked after us at base made up our group this evening.
GoodGym Becky ran with Katy, and I ran with Andrew who is training for London on the 3rd. Naqi, also training for a sub-4hr London marathon had his own guide with him who had planned an interval session - they bounded past us all on several occasions. Andrew and I ran quite well together considering this was only my second time guiding (although I have read some of the guiding notes on the EA website). It was quite different running with Andrew on my left, compared to my last run where the runner was on my right but I worked it out and we managed to avoid all the obstacles. Andrew was very chatty and I found myself giving directions slightly too late as I didn't want to rudely interrupt his conversation! Becky and Katy ran a similar distance to us and Katy gave us a bit of a lesson in turning afterwards including how to verbalise instructions and warnings - describing, with some entertaining anecdotes, how single words are often not enough when you don't also have the visual clue e.g. 'Duck!' (pretty bird! or You are about to hit your head!) This is such a rewarding task. Andrew reminded me that without a guide the runners are not able to run outside - he has done most of his marathon training on a treadmill indoors at home..............