Guides for blind runner sought.

I have a blind friend who lives in the Rayners Lane/Harrow area who loves to run, but has difficulty in training more than a couple of times a week because she is dependant on having someone to guide her. She is quite happy to travel on the tube with her dog. I meet her at Amersham station once a week and take her to High Wycombe where my club Handy Cross Runners is based so that she can run with me on our training evenings. She loves to run across country and has no trouble with negotiating stiles or coping with rough going as she has a well developed sense of balance and can detect the slightest change in tension and movement of the band that connects her to her guide. She copes well with distances of up to ten miles, and can maintain ten minute mile pace over that distance. She also loves to race, and over shorter distances can achieve nine minute mile pace. Now that the evenings are getting darker, and us sighted runners are restricted to well lit streets and track running, Linda is trying interval training, so I am sure that she will improve even more. Linda also likes a good chat, which is where I fall down badly, because I am a bit on the quiet side when I am running.

If you would like to enrich your running experiences and help another runner to improve, please contact me and I will forward your details to Linda. Running housewives and those lucky enough to have retired from full time work, please note that Linda can also fit running in to her daytime schedule if you are available to run with her.

Yours in sport, and in anticipation,
Mike Hickman