{"id":226,"date":"2017-04-16T21:10:54","date_gmt":"2017-04-16T21:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/?p=226"},"modified":"2017-04-17T01:29:53","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T01:29:53","slug":"blind-and-visually-impaired-runners-take-on-boston-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/marathon-2017\/blind-and-visually-impaired-runners-take-on-boston-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Blind and Visually Impaired Runners Take On Boston Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Valdya Baraputri<\/strong><br \/>\nBU News Service<\/p>\n<p>For the 25th year, blind and visually impaired runners will come across the finish line at the Boston Marathon along with their sighted guides.<\/p>\n<p>At an annual pasta dinner sponsored by the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired on Saturday, April 15, one guide gave the runners the credit. \u201cPeople said: &#8216;Awww, that\u2019s a very sweet of you, being a guide for blind runners,'&#8221; said Matthew Vance of Humble, Texas, a guide for blind runner Matt Oliver of Santee, California. &#8220;No! These runners are kicking our ass!,\u201d Vance exclaimed as the other runners and guides in the room cheered.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<style>\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 20%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-226 gallery-columns-5 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/blind-runners_suksangium-8\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-8-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-177\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-8-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-8-32x32.jpg 32w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-8-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-8-64x64.jpg 64w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-8-96x96.jpg 96w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-8-128x128.jpg 128w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-177'>\n\t\t\t\tAaron Scheidies sells his C Different with Aaron T-shirts of which profits go to MABVI on Saturday, Apr. 15, 2017. Photo by Kate Suksangium\/BU News Service\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/blind-runners_suksangium-5\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-5-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-174\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-5-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-5-32x32.jpg 32w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-5-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-5-64x64.jpg 64w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-5-96x96.jpg 96w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-5-128x128.jpg 128w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-174'>\n\t\t\t\tAaron Scheidies of Seattle says he sometimes ran ahead of his guide in his previous marathons. Photo by Kate Suksangium\/BU News Service\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/blind-runners_suksangium-4\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-4-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-173\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-4-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-4-32x32.jpg 32w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-4-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-4-64x64.jpg 64w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-4-96x96.jpg 96w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-4-128x128.jpg 128w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-173'>\n\t\t\t\tAry Tsotras of London, enjoys his pasta dinner and talks to his friends on Saturday, Apr. 15, 2017. Photo by Kate Suksangium\/BU News Service\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/blind-runners_suksangium-1\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-1-32x32.jpg 32w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-1-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-1-64x64.jpg 64w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-1-96x96.jpg 96w, https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Blind-Runners_Suksangium-1-128x128.jpg 128w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-170'>\n\t\t\t\tBlind runners and their guides make acquaintances and socialize at the Pasta Dinner Event held by Team With A Vision of  Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired on Saturday, Apr. 15, 2017. Photo by Kate Suksangium\/BU News Service\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Blind and visually impaired runners might start the marathon with one guide and finish with another.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe joke is that a guide can\u2019t keep up with us, so we have two,&#8221; said Aaron &#8220;The Tank&#8221; Scheidies of Seattle, Washington. His vision is about 20 percent of a fully sighted person&#8217;s due to juvenile macular degeneration, a condition where the eye&#8217;s macula, a small area in the retina \u2014\u00a0breaks down over time. He has progressively lost\u00a0his central vision. His peripheral vision is blurry, as well.<\/p>\n<p>Scheidies has run 19 marathons. The 2017 Boston Marathon will be his\u00a0fifth. People call him &#8220;The Tank&#8221; because of his ability to push a lot of power. He&#8217;s won the Men\u2019s Visually Impaired Division for the last three years.<\/p>\n<p>He\u00a0will have two guides with him at the Marathon who\u00a0will trade off\u00a0at the halfway mark. One guide has\u00a0run with him many times and the other just met\u00a0him on Saturday, two days before the marathon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have a history for going on too fast,&#8221; said Scheidies. &#8220;They\u2019ll tell me if I went too fast. We\u2019re not gonna let that happen this year.\u201d His bib number is 1789.<\/p>\n<p>With someone like Scheidies, it&#8217;s hard to tell who faces the biggest challenge in the Marathon. Is it\u00a0the blind and visually impaired runners or is it the sighted guides?<\/p>\n<p>Sara Ferniza of Austin, Texas, will be the guide for Ary Tsotras of Ontario, Canada. Ferniza also just met her running partner two days before the race. Ferniza&#8217;s experience running 45 marathons, including five Boston Marathons, has made her confident.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m confident because I&#8217;ve been a pacer for 15 years, we\u2019re just gonna have fun!,\u201d said Ferniza. She qualified for this year\u2019s marathon but gave up her place to be a guide.<\/p>\n<p>Guides can come in all forms. Technology, in the form of smart devices, can be a guide.<\/p>\n<p>Erich Manser of Littleton, Massachusetts, was diagnosed with retinitis\u00a0pigmentosa when\u00a0he was a child. He is losing his peripheral vision\u00a0gradually \u2014 he describes his vision as looking through a drinking straw with cloudiness in it.<\/p>\n<p>As a tester for IBM, Manser will give\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/aira.io\/\">Aira technology<\/a>\u00a0a try this year.\u00a0He will wear a Google Glass device and receive commands from a certified agent somewhere else, as far away as California. At the end of the marathon, he will report on how successful the technology was for him, in hopes of pushing further\u00a0progress in the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe live in an exciting time where technology is moving so rapidly. It&#8217;s the best time to be blind,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the 25th year, blind and visually impaired runners will come across the finish line at the Boston Marathon along with their sighted guides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6],"tags":[],"coauthors":[8],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-runner-profile","category-marathon-2017"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}