Running with a visual impairment

I didn’t think that a visually impaired person could do this but I said at the start of the year I wanted to try something new to keep fit but I didn’t think that this was possible that was me been negative but you have to be positive and everything is possible if you have the right mindset for it which is important

Through the help of the Orientation and Mobility officer she gave me the push that I needed and I registered with parkrun Ireland and they said that they have a weekly parkrun in St Anne’s Park which is not far from me and I contacted the organiser and they said that they guides for to guide visually impaired people in a run and they were very helpful in accommodating me and for the first time the organiser of the run picked me up at the local train station which isn’t far from the park which is very good

How it works is that you have to bring a rope with you and tie two ends with a knot so you can put your hand in one end and the guide can put her hand in the other end and we just run when the it starts like anyone else and after the first time my guide was very nice and was picking me up from my house because she didn’t live far from me which was nice thing to do and she would drop me back afterwards which was very handy for me to be honest

I did the parkrun a few times and I was really enjoying it both mentally and physically and my fitness was improving and the times were getting better each time which was great because I love to be competitive so I was really happy with that so there’s no reason why you can’t run with a visual impairment you’re just running like anyone else the only difference is that you have a guide

My guide was very encouraging and started running during the week with her that’s how much I was enjoying it and we were running at night time which didn’t think was possible a few years ago the only difference from brightness to darkness is that make sure that you were bright clothes and get a good flash lamp so you know where you’ll be going

I did my first race with Karen which is my guide in the Phoenix Park a few weeks ago now it was an 8k and it was for the Simon Community we done it in 50 minutes I was chuffed with myself and felt so good within myself afterwards so it has done wonders for my mental and physical health hopefully we do a few more races in the future

So I would recommend anyone that’s visually impaired and wants to take up running there’s no reason why you can’t the only difference is that you’ll have a guide and if I can do it there’s no reason why anyone else that has a visual impairment can do it and you also build up relationship with the guide along the way which is also great