ellenshana
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« on: June 20, 2010, 05:05:01 PM » |
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Vision 5k, June 20, 2010
The worst thing that could happen is that you finish reading this and think I’m awesome. The best thing that could happen is that you finish reading this and realize that soft-spoken Kelly is tough as nails.
Tania emailed me three weeks ago: was I still interested in being a guide for somebody in the Vision 5k? Yes.
Kelly emails after we are introduced. Legally blind with 20/200 and 20/400 vision with light sensitivity and additional hearing loss that requires aids, she writes that she is training for a fall marathon, runs with a group on a route she knows fairly well. We agree to meet at the registration table.
As a first-time guide, I’ve been told I’m to guide, not pace; I’m to warn and assist, not run my own race. At a training session I was taught to run holding a tether with my partner.
Twenty-seven year old Kelly, who just received her masters in rehabilitation counseling, has never run with a guide, doesn’t really want to run with a tether, wants to finish the race in about 25 minutes. She agrees to hold one end of the tether to start, see how it goes.
We start. It is humid, hot and crowded. The course has invisible hills. I write “invisible” and realize the irony.
The tether sucks. It’s hard for her to use it, we let it go. We do our best to stay close together. I call out to runners in front of us as we approach; much louder, much gruffer, I think, than usual. On your right! On your left! Coming through! Kelly has a hard time hearing me when I try to warn her of obstacles; there’s too much distracting noise, too many people. We hit mile one in 8:25. It is very hot.
We take turns leading each other, get water at the second water stop, stop and walk for about 20 seconds. Kelly trips, falls, and I blame myself – what should I have done differently here? She gets up, I ask if she is OK; she nods. We run more. It is very hot.
There is no shade. As the race thins and we have more space for us alone she can hear me say how much straightaway, when to turn. We hit mile two in around 17 minutes. Mile three gets hard – the heat is getting to us, she’s not feeling well, I’m working hard. We walk for a minute halfway up a hill that she says she can feel, and then she tells me she’s good to go whenever I am. I tell her we’ve got a half mile left; she nods. Mile three is around 27:29.
I see the finish. I yell, GO! GO! I slow down, yell, it’s here, there’s the finish, RUN and I hear the announcer say, and there you see a guide doing what a guide is supposed to do, making sure her runner is getting over the finish. I think, you ass, Kelly is running this race, not me, I’m not doing anything, she’s run the whole damn thing, this has nothing to do with me. We finish, by my watch, unofficial results, 28:32.
Kelly ran this race. I guided? No, I ran next to her.
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