Well, being a runner first and a cyclist second, I have done the same thing numerous times. However, we tried to stay in single file in a group if we were running on the road itself, unless there was a decent sized shoulder. From what you said it sounds like there was not much of a shoulder along the edge of the road. In this case, if there was no sidewalk, the runners have the right of way, so it would make sense that the cars go around with no complaining, granted pedestrians always have the right of way in a legal sense. Unfortunitely, a lot of fellow runners are a bit on the pig-headed side and feel they have the right to tak eover the road. Well, that's just idiotic of them, and the only reason they continue to do this is that they haven't been repremanded or clipped by a car or anything, so they figure why change what I am doing.

Either way, it isn't necessarily right of the runners to invade the road as it sounds like they have, but they do have the right of way. Hopefully you don't run into to many groups that are like this though, cause as a whole, i think most runners would have given more space to you and the vehicles.