Running is their weakness
The Achilles St. Patrick’s Day run/walk was created to encourage people with disabilities to run
Brian Mclean was just 16 years old when he noticed his vision was deteriorating.
Shortly after getting his driver’s licence, the avid hockey player with the sure shot and the quick reflexes noticed that night driving was becoming increasingly difficult.
Eventually Mclean was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a visual impairment that left him with extreme tunnel vision.
“If I look at someone I can see their nose and eyes. But I can’t see their ears,” he offers, by way of explanation. “I am legally blind.”
His compromised vision made playing sports challenging but it was not impossible.
Mclean manages the local chapter of Achilles International, including the annual Achilles St. Patrick’s Day 5K Run/walk, which encourages people with disabilities to experience the joy of running — the same runners high Mclean felt while training with guides outdoors and on his own on a treadmill.
Achilles Canada, a non-profit organization, aspires to provide people with disabilities “the opportunity to receive the physical, psychological and communal benefits of running.”
The organization provides coaching and connects disabled athletes with guides for training and races.
There are recurring themes among Achilles athletes, their love of sport in general and more specifically their passion for running.
The event has grown steadily in popularity since 1999, when 500 people gathered at the start line. Now it attracts about1,500 men and women — people with vision challenges like Mclean as well as runners with cerebral palsy, paraplegia, amputations and cystic fibrosis. They’ve made it to the finish line in wheelchairs, on crutches, on prosthesis and some without aids at all.
Now 48, the self employed event marketer wants everyone, regardless of their ability, to experience the joy of running. He has a motto: “If you have an interest pursue it to the best of your ability regardless of your disability.”
But the underlying message, he says, is linked with staying healthy and fit.
Mclean was 36 when he ran his first marathon.
He recruited three guides — someone on either side of him and another guide out front. They kept him in line and warned him of obstacles he may be approaching — a divot in the pavement, a wonky manhole cover or railway tracks — minor hurdles for most runners — but potentially ruinous for a blind runner.
He’s since married one of those guides and they have a 3-year-old child.
Over the years he’s run 11 marathons, still using guides. He plays golf occasionally and has even returned to his first love — hockey.
“I played hockey until I was 18 — until I couldn’t follow the puck anymore,” he says. He stopped playing once his vision had narrowed to such a fine point that he couldn’t keep up with the other players.
Now Mclean plays a modified version of the game.
“We take the wheel off a child’s wagon and put marbles in it so we can hear it. Essentially we use a big puck that rattles.” There are people without disabilities on each team to keep the game moving along.
Still, it’s frustrating, he says. Each game reminds him of how fast and sure he was on the ice before his vision began to fail.
“By the time I get the puck anywhere near the net someone has taken it from me. I used to be a good hockey player.”
Mclean misses the rush he experienced as a competitive hockey player. Now he approximates that feeling with long distance running and he is preparing the ultimate athletic challenge — an Ironman.
Meanwhile as he trains — swimming, biking, running — he’s preparing the St. Patricks Day event, which is often booked to capacity weeks before the bang of the starting gun, and attracts people with disabilities as well as able-bodied runners.
Some of the participants are former athletes who have always appreciated the benefits of sport. Others are attempting the run for the first time.
Radane Wright was in a car accident when he was18 which left him cognitively impaired. And following the accident he experienced a dramatic depletion of his vision. He had played soccer, basketball and tennis before — but his doctor recommended running as appropriate therapy, concerned he might sustain further head injuries if he played soccer and basketball.
The 24-year-old, who is studying community work at George Brown College and lives on his own with a roommate, will run in the St. Patrick’s Day event with the assistance of one guide. He’s been involved in the run for three years.
It’s all very simple, says Wright, who trains five days each week.
“It’s a way for me to be active. It gives me a way to feel normal. And when I run I have a sense of family, a sense of belonging. I feel I’ve made lifelong friends.”
The race starts and finishes at the Steam Whistle Brewery, at 255 Bremner Blvd. at 10:15 am. on March 18.
Kim Umbach, 42, manager of support programs at the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, was born with leber congenital amaurosis and has been blind since birth. Undaunted, as a teenager she began running while attending Sir Wilfred Laurier High School in Ottawa and ran cross country during her years at the University of New Brunswick, studying physical education.
Like Mclean, she has participated in a variety of sports including cross country skiing and cycling (on a tandem bicycle with a sighted partner). This will be her fourth Achilles St. Patrick’s Day run.
“Running gives me energy. It relieves stress and lets me get out of my head for a while.”
And the camaraderie is a powerful draw. “We are simply all very passionate about running.”