It was about a year ago that Emma told me that she would
like to run the Great Eastern blindfolded. Now I’m pretty used to Emma
declaring that she wants to do something mad … like imagine someone that’s
never done a triathlon before telling you that they are now going to do a half
iron man. And I’m also used to Emma actually then going ahead and doing the mad
things that she sets out to do. She also told me that she would like me to be
her guide. At the time, I didn’t think too hard about what she was asking. I
just thought ‘can I run 13 miles? … yes I can’ and I imagine I would have given
her a happy shrug and said “Sure, sounds fun”.
It came up occasionally in conversation every now and again,
and we even did a very brief practice run of a few seconds where Emma closed
her eyes and held my arm … and confirmed that it was a very weird feeling
indeed. But apart from that, it didn’t come up very often and in truth I didn’t
really think about it again until late August, when Emma started mentioning it
with increasing regularity. It wasn’t till early September when I realised … that
we were actually doing this …
I still don’t think I fully took on board what Emma had
asked me to do until we had our first proper training run. In true ‘Summer and
Emma’ style, we started training properly for this about 4 weeks before the
Great Eastern itself. It was on that first training run, when Emma donned that blindfold,
put her hand on mine and her faith in me, that I realised quite what I’d
volunteered to do and the responsibility I had taken on. I could see how
frightened and disorientated Emma was, and the importance of my role in, not
only being her eyes and keeping her clear from hazards, but also keeping her
calm and reassured. Our practice run started slowly, but she built confidence
and we did a nice half hour canter up and down the rowing lake. A few strange
looks from passers by, and one particularly lovely woman (also running) who I
will never forget who gave me the biggest thumbs up and shouted ‘Woooo! Go
ladies!!!’… I love her and all runners like her.
Now, I am known amongst my friends as a bit more clumsy than
your normal person. One friend calls me ‘the breaker’, and gets out the big chunky
unbreakable drinking vessels whenever I come over. One of my ongoing complaints
with Emma is that the only time she ever tells me she loves me is when I fall
over or walk into a stationary object … I’ll be walking happily down the road
with my good friend Emma, I will trip over someone and then I’ll hear a chuckle
behind me and the words “Oh I love you”. My problem being I find it very hard
to concentrate on one thing for very long, which makes me a bit unobservant of
my surroundings. So I figured she must have known who she was asking when she asked
me to do this, we know each other very well after all. But I felt genuine anxiety
after our short training run. What we’d just done took A LOT of concentration
on my part. Could I do that for the best part of three hours, as my legs were
getting tired and my mind constantly trying to wander?
I love long distance running because I feel a sort of
meditation in it, I surrender my mind to wherever it wants to go. Often it’s
that weird place between sleeping and waking, where one thought randomly
connects to another and before you know it you’ve gone from trying to figure
out a particularly tricky work issue to wondering why everyone doesn’t
generally accept that Michael Keaton’s batman was by far the most superior, and
you will have reached that through a segway via the Great British Bake Off and
that weird way that Mary bites into biscuits … using the side of her mouth, I
mean what’s that about?!
In this new version of long distance running I had to do the
following:
1.
Be aware of the ground ahead of us and quickly
find the words to describe it before we reached it (which was why I ended
describing paving as parkour … and it kind of stuck)
2.
Be aware of everyone around us and weave around
obstacles in the gentlest way possible … changing direction with a blind person
attached to you is like turning and ocean liner, you have to set the course
well in advance, give it a wide berth and hope that the little tugs around you
realise what you’re doing
3.
Keep saying reassuring things and letting them
know what’s going on around them
4.
Know where you are … know where she is
5.
Talk loudly as people approach to let them know
in the politest way possible that they need to get out of your way ‘oh here are
some nice people who are kindly getting
out of our way’
6.
Manage quick evasive manoeuvres (see ocean liner
analogy in item 2 above) when they don’t get out of your way, or don’t realise
that whilst their dog may not bite, it is NOT harmless if it’s wandering into
the legs of a blind running woman.
So I was terrified that I actually wasn’t going to be able
to do this. I never told Emma this, and I thought the worse that could happen
is that we start the run and can’t complete it … it’s too late for her to find
someone else … and it’s not like anyone would be heartless enough to withdraw
their sponsorship right?
With a few more training runs under our belts, including a
long one, which I used to test my mental capacity to concentrate for a whole
hour. I felt marginally more confident. Well I felt confident that I wasn’t
going to kill Emma within the first hour anyway.
There were lots of times when we made each other laugh, and
found out that the moment I was distracted by something funny, or a cute child
… immediately after that moment, something very dangerous would almost happen
to Emma. On one particular training run (the one where we tested curbs … which
we then decided we would just avoid like the plague) there were three times
where I shouted ‘STOP!!’, they were respectively, a brick wall, a fence and a
lamppost. To this day Emma only knows about the lamppost … well till now I
guess. The thing I loved about Emma doing this challenge was she had a smile on
her face the entire time she was running, and when I suddenly had to avert her
from a hazard, she kept smiling and she never once asked what it was. She just
allowed me to gently reverse her, change her course and continue running.
On our last training run I asked Emma if I could run
blindfolded. It was utterly terrifying, I didn’t like it and I only did it for
about 100 metres before whipping the blindfold off and saying that I’d done
enough to get an idea of it thankyouverymuch. I was in awe of Emma after that. I
realised how frightened she must have been when we did park run and there were
runners all around us, I remember squeezing her hand gently on that park run as
she started faltering, and telling her that she was okay … but not really
understanding why she was halting so much. Now I understood. I also understood
quite what a huge compliment it was that Emma had asked me to do this … me! My
heart swelled with pride and I knew I couldn’t let my beautiful and crazy
friend down if she had this much faith in me. Emma is incredible, and if she
thinks that I can do something like this then I must be incredible too.
I was going to write some stuff about the run, about how I
decided (after our friend Carolyn’s inspiration) to describe all sorts of landscapes to Emma as we ran through our home town. But Emma has
written an incredibly beautiful blog about that, which you should read if you
haven’t already. What I will say about the run is that it was a lot of fun and
I managed to concentrate beyond the first hour … possibly even for most of the
2hrs and 44 minutes we were running.
We both learnt a lot about what it must be like to be blind
or partially sighted, Emma more than me of course. But I definitely have an
insight now, which means I think a little deeper when I come across someone who
is visually impaired. I think about the simplest things I do, get out of bed,
eat my porridge … and I wonder what systems and processes they must have
incorporated into their lives to make those simple things possible.
I also learnt about friendship. If I’m thinking something it
will usually come out of Emma’s mouth and in conversations we all too often
come out with the same words at the same time. This is a sign of the fact that
Emma and I spend A LOT of time together. Yes I am sure we were drawn to each
other because we are quite similar to start with. But in reality, in a
friendship that has lasted 8 years (according to facebook), we have spent so
much time together I’m sure we’ve also shaped each other to become even more
like one another, more able to predict what the other is thinking and how the
other is feeling. By sharing our secrets we’ve learnt we can trust each other,
and by asking each other for help we learnt that we’re always there for each
other. So finally, it does make sense to me why Emma asked me to do this,
despite my propensity for clumsiness … I understand and I’m grateful and
incredibly proud.
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