This paper stems from conversations about tension that runners with sight loss and sighted guides experience regarding guided running workshops, which are typically designed to promote safe and enjoyable practices. On the one hand, runners value these workshops as introductory tools that teach ‘logical’ principles and ‘rational’ approaches to safe and enjoyable guiding relationships. On the other hand, the runners recognise clear limitations: these standardised courses often leave little room for idiosyncrasy and personal familiarity, particularly in relation to ‘sensing’ safety, comfort, and enjoyment. Building on this tension, I situate these concerns within broader neoliberal approaches in most Global Northern public domains, where human relationships are increasingly managed, audited, and standardised. I argue that such tendencies transform elements of social life into clear, logical, and rational frameworks– ones that are accountable, auditable, and assessable through training. Drawing on conversations with runners, I illustrate how these courses necessarily tell a partial story – safety and joy in guided running arise from a complex and nuanced connection to ‘more-than-rational’ ways of knowing– both through rational thought and through ‘sensing’. In the conclusion, I address the critical question: how can we include ‘sensory knowing’ in workshops on positive, pleasant and productive guided running?