[Blindtlk] Blind and Visually Impaired Athletes FinishBostonMarathon

[Kathleen A. Millhoff]

fun reading this; i'd often wondered about the accommodations for blind
marathoners; i also often wondered if guides would actually slow people
down.
the article lists the times and how they compare with overall winners, but i
wonder how they compare with the overall field; guess it could be googled.
i also like the attitude expressed in the interview; i don't think sight
alone would slow a runner so it must be some other factors in reliance on
alternatives.
it seems each time i read about a blind person racing, he/she has a bit of
useable vision - there must be totally blind racers out there.

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk-bounces+kamillhoff=gdoe.net at nfbnet.org
[mailto:blindtlk-bounces+kamillhoff=gdoe.net at nfbnet.org]On Behalf Of H.
Field
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 8:02 AM
To: blindtlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Blindtlk] Blind and Visually Impaired Athletes
FinishBostonMarathon


-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Teale - Signature Web Design [mailto:bill at pressakey.net]
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 6:39 PM
To: news at pressakey.net

Congratulations to all of the following!



From: U.S. Association of Blind Athletes [mailto:media at usaba.org]
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 3:02 PM



Congratulations to the following blind and visually impaired athletes
for finishing today's Boston Marathon!

Kurt Fiene - Omaha, NE - 2:55:00
Adrian Broca - Los Angeles, CA - 2:56:18
James Salley - Frederick, MD - 3:21:33
Ivonne Mosquera - New York, NY -  3:22:22
Jeffery Benelli - Overland Park, KS - 3:26:49
Steven Wood - St. Clair Shores, MI - 3:35:28
Erich Manser - Leominster, MA - 3:41:07
Richard Miles - East Lansing, MI - 3:42:32
Jennifer Herring - King of Prussia, PA - 3:44:04
Richard Hunter - Folsom, CA - 3:46:30
Kenneth Clark - Cleveland, TN - 4:10:32
Ivan Castro - Ft. Bragg, NC - 4:25:06
Alexander Mueller - Boston, MA - 4:25:51
John Kusku - Kalamazoo, MI - 4:42:44
Charles Plaskon - Punta Gorda, FL - 4:53:22
Vic Vereshack - Springdale, PA - 4:53:26

Also, please enjoy the following article from the Boston Globe.

Chasing glory they can feel, not see
Visually-impaired marathoners dream big
By Shira Springer, Globe Staff  |  April 20, 2008

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Carrying his collapsible white cane, Adrian
Broca
is running along the Pacific coast but dreaming of Boston. The pale
gray
concrete bike path ahead is invisible to him, blending into the
surrounding sand. He can make out the dark blur of black pavement when
he's on it, but little else.

Sounds come through loud and clear, however. He hears the hum of
cyclists speeding closer, but can't tell if they have enough room to
safely pass. Suddenly, he feels a sharp tug on the tether he grips in
his right hand. A training partner guides Broca out of harm's way.
Near
the end of the 10-mile run, Broca drops the tether and races to the
finish, his guides giving chase.

"When I run with my legs really turning, I feel alive," Broca said.
"It's liberating."

Broca, who lost his sight at 18 to a hereditary condition that damaged
his optic nerve, is the fastest blind marathoner in the country.
Tomorrow, the 31-year-old hopes to defend his title in the Boston
Marathon's visually impaired division and meet the "A" qualifying
standard for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics of 2 hours 46 minutes. That
would place Broca roughly 35 minutes behind the Boston finish times of
the world's top male marathoners.

"Once I hear the gun go off, I forget about being visually impaired
and
feel like any other runner out there who has one goal in mind," said
Broca. "When I started running around my neighborhood after losing my
sight, bumping into light posts and bus stop benches, I was fighting
off
my blindness, telling myself that this is not going to stop me."

He leads a field of 19 runners - 15 men and 4 women - who will run the
26.2-mile course without being able to see it. Among them are three
totally blind runners, who are categorized as B1. Broca falls into the
B2 classification because he can just barely make out the vague shape
of
a hand when held close. He will be allowed four guides to assist him
through the race.

The logistics alone are daunting. Each guide will cover roughly
one-quarter of the course. Depending on how many other runners are
crowded around him, Broca either will use an 18-inch modified dog
leash
as a tether, gripping one end with his right hand, or ask his guide to
just run alongside. Finding guides fast enough to keep up can be a
challenge.

Broca's toughest competition will come from Kurt Fiene, the
second-fastest visually impaired US marathoner, with a personal best
of
2:52:55. Like Broca, Fiene knows the Boston Marathon is his last, best
opportunity to qualify for the Paralympics.

Born with a condition that left him without irises, Fiene, 46, has no
vision in his right eye and 20/400 vision in his left, putting him
into
the B3 category. B3 runners are prohibited from using guides. During
the
later stages of a marathon, Fiene struggles with vision in his good
eye.


"My eyes get tired and a little blurrier because I've got to watch a
little more than most people do for cracks or holes or people cutting
in
front of me," said Fiene. "But who can see straight at 20 miles?"

Advantages, obstacles
Nothing is the same for these runners - nothing except the
determination
to run at a champion's pace.

While anyone attempting to run the Boston Marathon averaging 6 minutes
20 seconds per mile expects physical and mental challenges, Broca and
Fiene lose time at places most runners pass with ease, though there
are
some unexpected advantages. They cannot, for example, see Heartbreak
Hill rise in front of them, missing the view that instills fear and
dread and slows many runners. But Broca and Fiene agree it is a poor
tradeoff for the obstacles they face.

In the packed starting area and through the first few miles before the
crowd of runners thins, Broca remains reluctantly tethered to his
guide.
The leash inhibits his arm movement, making it difficult to establish
a
rhythm. It does, however, allow Broca and his guide to maneuver more
efficiently around runners. With a tug here, a few verbal cues, a tug
there, they can make their way into a small open patch, and repeat the
process as Broca picks off other marathoners.

"I'm OK holding onto the tether, but I feel I can go faster without
it,"
said Broca. "I've gone ahead of my guide in Boston, dropping the
tether
when I feel I need to push the pace."

The relatively straight, point-to-point layout of Boston's course
allows
Broca to run faster when he wants, though he needs his guide nearby,
especially for right-angle turns. To get Broca safely through turns,
his
guide serves as a human GPS. When the right turn from Washington
Street
onto Commonwealth Avenue approaches tomorrow, Broca's guide will warn
him. Then the guide will shout, "Right, right, right" until they have
completed the turn.

Fiene relies on his good eye and the crowds lining the course to keep
on
track. In smaller, more rural races, Fiene has missed turns and gotten
lost many times.

At water stations, Fiene must slow almost to a stop and grab a cup by
both hands, otherwise he doesn't get enough water and risks
dehydration.
Although Broca relishes the independence running provides and ran his
first seven marathons without assistance, he recognized he needed
guides
to retrieve water during the sweltering 2004 Los Angeles Marathon.
Running by himself, he missed several water stations and nearly
suffered
heatstroke, though he still finished the race.

"I knew I was limiting myself without guides, not only with all the
turns, but getting water and having to ask runners what mile it was,"
said Broca. "That race I realized I was putting my life in danger by
not
letting people know I was blind. As I got more competitive, I wasn't
enjoying running as much doing it myself. I knew I wouldn't be able to
reach my full potential."

While guides tell Broca his pace, Fiene often runs without the benefit
of knowing his mile times. Sometimes he simply can't see mile markers
and therefore doesn't know when to check his watch. At Boston, Fiene
benefits from rubber mats placed across the road every 5 kilometers to
record data from timing chips used to track runners' progress. The
mats,
in combination with a talking stopwatch that announces elapsed time
with
the push of a button, will enable Fiene to better pace himself.

"Running is a sport I can do on my own and that's why I got into it,"
said Fiene, who was a medalist at the International Paralympics
Committee World Championships in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 meters
before focusing on the marathon. "I play golf, but I can't go to the
golf course by myself because I can't see where the ball goes off the
tee. If I know the area where I'm running, I don't need somebody with
me."

On the path around Lake Zorinsky in Omaha where Fiene regularly runs,
however, he doesn't mind company. He sets an impressively steady pace
for other runners. For that reason, women's Olympic Marathon Trials
qualifier Christy Nielsen calls Fiene the "perfect training partner."
While Fiene keeps workouts on target, his training partners alert him
to
random icy patches, dogs, and speed bumps.

"When I tell people my training partner is blind, they say, 'What?' "
said Nielsen. "But what's funny about Kurt is that when you go
anywhere
with him, he's the one who tells you where to go. He's so in tune with
what's around him. I'm wowed by him when he kicks my butt all the
time."


Fiene will cheer Nielsen to the finish of the women's Trials today.
Then, they will switch roles for the Marathon. Nielsen believes Fiene
has the talent to run a 2:45 Marathon, which would have placed him
among
the top 25 sighted Masters (ages 40-49) runners last year.


A long journey
Approximately 300 yards from the Marathon finish line, Broca plans to
fully extend his cane and hold it aloft, showing his pride in
representing visually impaired athletes. It is also a way to
underscore
just how far he has come.

When he first lost his sight, Broca tumbled into a deep depression and
thought about suicide. He walked around without a cane, preferring the
bruises he got bumping into everyday obstacles to the appearance of a
disability. On his first training runs, Broca ventured out alone and
returned home with cuts from the times he tripped and fell. Still,
running made Broca feel normal.

"I did contemplate suicide, but my family would have been so hurt,"
said
Broca, who is Mexican-American. "I couldn't cause them that harm. They
had always been supportive, encouraging me to focus on what I could
do.
When I ran into things, they patched me up and just said, 'Be more
careful out there.' "

Broca ran cross-country in high school, but he was an average runner
who
never took the sport seriously when he could see. As his vision
declined, he became increasingly frustrated in class, and
cross-country
offered a refuge until he no longer could see where to run.

Getting lost on courses embarrassed him. It took several years before
Broca found his way as a blind man, mastering adaptive technologies,
enrolling in college, then finally returning to running. He figured
marathons would be easier to handle by himself than shorter road races
with more participants and more turns.

In 2001, when Broca finished his first marathon following only three
months of training, he fell in love with the sense of individual
accomplishment. He kept entering marathons and kept improving.


Hopes and dreams
After finishing his training run, Broca enters the Santa Monica Beach
Club with his training partners. He feels for the door frame with his
right hand.

Then, extending his cane, he pokes at the set of stairs leading to a
back patio, where he sits and speaks of his hopes like any other
athletic star - for ever improving times, for finding a sponsor, for
the
day when there will be prize money for visually impaired athletes.

"I've worked hard for what I've achieved, and I feel whatever time I
end
up running was the best time I could do on that day and wasn't because
I
couldn't see," said Broca.

"I don't think I'd be running if I hadn't lost my sight. I wouldn't be
pushing myself."

Shira Springer can be reached at springer at globe.com



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