Staying Active with Vision Loss

0:01If running or cycling used to be a passion of yours, or if you've always wanted to run a race but haven't done it yet, those plans don't have to change after vision loss. In this episode, Hadley member Keith Hodder and Connecticut chapter director Erin Spaulding join us to discuss how Achilles International can help you achieve your athletic goals. I'm Ricky Enger, and this is Hadley Presents. Welcome to the show, Keith, Erin. Good morning, Ricky. Good morning. Thanks for having me.

0:33I am delighted to have you both. We get so many calls from people who are in that stage of feeling a little bit like, "I'm tired of being inside my house and surrounded by these four walls. I would love to get out, love to do some exercise, and I just don't know how to do that or if I can do it safely." You know, so many questions that people have, particularly after a vision loss and kind of adjusting to what that means. And I think Achilles does a phenomenal job of putting people just back in touch with that athletic side, or maybe in some cases, getting people in touch with that.

1:17You know, it could have been on your bucket list like, "Yeah, someday I'm going to do a 5K or whatever." And you never had the chance and now you're thinking, "Well, I guess I can't now," but thankfully that is not true. So I guess that's a good place to start actually is Erin, for people who don't know what Achilles is and what you all do, can you just give us a, a description of kind of how it works and who it serves? Yeah, I'm happy to. So Achilles International, we, by name, we literally are international.

1:53We have 62 chapters around the world, including in many states here in the US. And bottom line, kind of like you were leading up to, we are a community of support and our mission is really to transform the 26% of Americans who live with a disability. No matter where you are in the United States, we want you to get active with us through our athletic programs. But in a nutshell, just because you have a disability doesn't mean you can't go for a walk, go for a run, hand cycle.

2:29However, we really say however you move, come join our, our community. It's supporting you, whether it's through using a trained guide, a tether, however it is you move, we also want you to come and meet others if that's that social connection piece too of our mission. Yeah. And that's so important. It can feel very isolating if you don't know anyone who is like you and having those same challenges. It can be such a relief to meet others kind of going through the same thing and also to discover, "Hey, if I want to move, there's a way for me to do that.

3:09I don't have to sit and be inside these same four walls every day." So I love that. Exactly. Even just be relegated to the treadmill or I hear this a lot. I can only go on my elliptical because that's the only way that I'm safe and I can move my body. There's limitations. And that's what Achilles does. We break those barriers. We get people active, connected no matter what it is for that person. That's amazing. I love that. So Keith, you've actually been at this for a little while, and I suspect that you have come a long way from where you started.

3:52And that's always really cool to hear about as well is where someone started and kind of where they are now. So can you just take us back to the beginning of when you first got involved with Achilles and just tell that story. How did you become involved? What was it like initially and where are you now? Well, prior to me joining Achilles, I was an avid walker, basically around my neighborhood with my cane, doing three mile walks three to five days a week.

4:26I go to a low vision support group and one of the guest speakers happened to have been Erin. And when she was speaking about Achilles, I said to myself, "Wow, this is something I can do." And within three months, I had joined Achilles. My vision is basically hand movement, but I do see some things out there. So Achilles actually train the athletes how to participate, whether they walk, run, roll. My goal at the beginning was to basically fast walk.

5:08And I started training for fast walking and I was with a guide and my chosen piece to use for safety measures was a tether. So my guide would have one end of this 18-inch tether and I would have the other end. And we would go fast walking wherever we would do a workout. I then decided to join a couple 5K races. That was really exciting. I did a lot of fast walking in my first race and ended up being a competition between myself and another member.

5:48And I ended up running. But the experience of doing it, that was just, it was incredible to be part of something I thought I would never be part of. The next year I challenged myself to do a 10K and I continued to work out and improve my cardio and my running skills and everything. And my vision over the years has pretty much been the same. So when I started doing my walks a number of years ago, my vision is still the same as it is today. This year, I have upped my ante this year to participate in my first half marathon.

6:29So that is my goal. And I've been working hard at that training for it. And I'll go into full training mode in about a week in August. And I look forward to doing that. Wow. That is such a cool story to go from, "Hey, I walk every day, but I'm not competing in anything. And I get my exercise in, but that's where I am," to now you're training for a half marathon in a pretty short amount of time, all things considered. So it sounds like being matched with Achilles just allowed you to not only meet your initial goal, but to say, "Hey, I'm not stopping here.

7:15I'm going to keep going." Exactly. It was a group I didn't know a lot about. So it was like an eye-opener exercise, getting out there, improving my exercise, doing it with someone. And now I even have a team of guides that I basically work with whenever time comes to do it. So it is amazing how much this group and Achilles has helped me basically, like you said, a few minutes ago, Ricky, from sitting in the chair to getting out and doing something.

7:52And that had worked out really, really well. Absolutely. So Aaron, when someone first connects with Achilles, what happens after that? How do you go from, "Hey, I'm an athlete. I want to do something," to then matching that person and having them proceed with their goals? Yeah. There's something Keith said I just want to quickly comment on. He used the term athlete, and that is part of our community. It's part of our culture that we call everyone an athlete.

8:25And I get looked sometimes if I'm at a group, like a support group where I first met Keith, I get questions. Well, I've never done anything athletic to, "Hey, I was a high school athlete, college athlete, weekend warrior," whatever it is for that person. But there's something that's prideful. You come into Achilles, you come into our community, you're part of our team, you become like an extended family. And we say this all the time, you're an athlete because everyone moves their body.

9:00Using Keith's example, he just would go out in his neighborhood with his cane and he would move his body. And so that's athletic. So I sometimes go around and I debunk these myths that if you're an Achilles, you have to run a road race. You have to do. I get this all the time too. Oh my goodness, Achilles is about running marathons. Well, for some people, yes, but not for everyone. It is truly customized to the person with what they want to accomplish, whether it's just going around the block, getting off that treadmill or getting off that elliptical and going out with a trained guide.

9:40And Achilles provides that training that it's not just, "Hey, here's a tether," which Keith was describing. The guide holds one end in the hand, the athlete holds the other. Well, that takes practice. We're training the guide long before they even meet the athlete. And then they get paired together based on a lot of factors. We're never going to put somebody together who's faster or slower, get matched with, are they walkers? Are they runners? Again, it's all customizable.

10:15And then it takes time. And some days I'm going to just go, I want to walk around the block. And it takes time to build that trust. And when you do see that happen over time, it is absolutely, in some respects, hard to describe. And when you help somebody, as a volunteer does, enable that person to be exercising independently however they move, however far they want to go, however fast they want to go. There's never any pressure. It's that athlete saying, "This is my goal, this is what I want to do." And that volunteer in that community of support.

10:56That's excellent. It's meeting people where they are and giving them the freedom to decide, "Hey, here's what I want to do today. And that may be different than what I did last week." And allowing them to, I guess, literally go at their own pace. Keith, when you were matched with your first guide, can you talk about the process of that and anything that may have changed or stayed the same since then? What was it like training with another person?

11:29That is a very good question. When I joined Achilles, they had what they called engagement coordinators. And this group of people would bring athletes to board and help them in the beginning get through the process of joining Achilles. And my first guide was an engagement coordinator. So him and I hit it off really well in the beginning. He actually lived about 35 minutes from me and he'll drive down to my house and say, "Hey, let's go for a run.

12:02Let's go for a walk." And he basically took me under his wing in the beginning. He ran my first race with me and he continued to train with me. Over the last two years, we have built a tremendous relationship. And to me, it was heartwarming. It was very rewarding that someone would take time out of their day to work with me, help me, help me get to where I want to be. And he continues to this day being one of my guides. And we've also developed a very good friendship.

12:40This gentleman has really been there for me. This is what Aaron said about the community and the people in the community coming out to help. It's tremendous. And now that I've been a part of Achilles for two years, I decided to give back to the community itself by becoming an engagement coordinator myself this year, trying to give back and help other athletes get set up with guides so they can go out and do training. So it's a full circle effect of what I experienced from the beginning to where I am right now.

13:20That is so cool. And community is such a powerful thing. It's not just about going and doing what you set out to do, although that is part of it. It is actually connecting with someone on a number of levels. Absolutely. Yep. Erin, if someone is listening to this and thinking, "Hey, I kind of want to be a part of this." I know that as I'm learning more about it, and especially given what you said about how everyone is an athlete, if you're moving your body, it doesn't have to be something that feels unattainable from where you are right now.

13:59So if someone is looking to connect with an Achilles chapter, what's the process? And of course, if there, for some reason, isn't one available in someone's area, do you know of other resources that they might look to? Yes. So of the 62 chapters worldwide, 30 are here in the United States. And so on our website, which is www.achillesinternational.org, and that's spelled A-C-H-I-L-L-E-S, and then followed by international, you can drop down to find a chapter.

14:46And all of the United States chapters are linked there, those 30 locations. We are all following the same model, whether you're in New York City, Connecticut, Boston, Austin, Texas, Chicago, just to name a few other chapters. We have group workouts, races that we do locally in our states and around the country as well. So we bring this community no matter where we are, whatever state, whatever chapter. And so if you happen to live in a location in the country where there is not yet an established chapter, because we are growing, we are expanding chapters, looking at where do hubs of people who want to be active live?

15:34We are also a great resource. At the end of May, we began operating United in Stride, which some people may have heard of, which is a one-to-one digital matching program that connects people who are blind or low vision with both running and walking guides in their community. So that expanded our community, expanded our network and our ability to connect people. So us operating United Stride is a huge kind of, it just opens up the possibilities. Yeah, for sure. So as we kind of wrap things up, I always like to ask people this question because I know as the person doing this podcast, I feel this way a lot, and I know that listeners do too, where something comes along and it sounds really exciting and really cool, but there's reservations.

16:34It feels intimidating or you're just not sure. I don't know if I'm ready to do this thing. What would you say to someone who is in that position and just not sure about taking that first step? So Keith, we'll start with you. I think the best way for me to try to persuade someone to take a crack at something like this, especially visually impaired, the one thing that helped me really get involved with Achilles and why I am still here is I would tell people the community in which we are a part of, the people are incredibly wonderful.

17:24They're there to help you. They're there to guide you. They're also part of what I considered and was looking for with an additional social network. For me personally, my suggestion to people who might be on the fence would be, "Hey, you know what? You're getting like a handful of things out of this. You're getting exercise. You're getting community. You're getting social interaction. And I have made a great ton of friends here and I enjoy every one of them.

18:02And I have not had a bad experience since I've been with Achilles." So those are the lines that I would use to persuade someone to try to become active. Give us the shot in the group of Achilles International because it is a very rewarding experience. And in two years, it has changed my life. So I hope I can persuade someone to do the same. Really well put. Thank you. Erin, what would you add to that? I don't know if I can follow that, Ricky. I know, right? I don't think I can.

18:38I think that from my perspective, right, I'm at the workouts, I'm at the races. I'm witnessing what Keith just described. Come try it. That's all we can say. And I meet people who are hesitant, they're nervous. And Keith brought up earlier, we have an engagement team. They're talking to you on the phone. They're connecting with you as humans before you even come to your first workout. We send out expectations. We explain them to you. What do you expect? Sometimes that fear of the unknown, we try to reduce that.

19:18Then they come, we pair them with a guide if they need a guide. They go for a walk. They make that plan. And then at the end, you're going to know you gave it a shot. And we've had some people, honestly, it isn't for them. But that's okay because they tried. And to speak to Keith's social events, we do a number of different things throughout the year. We are the basketball capital of the world. We go to games. That's not part of walking or running, but it is or rolling.

19:53It is part of our community. Let's go have fun at a Yukon basketball game. So we do things for team building and that trust, that camaraderie and fun. We just have fun together. Come try it. Challenge yourself differently. We just had on last Thursday a kind of hybrid social event workout with another adaptive sports organization here in Connecticut. And they brought some of their adaptive equipment. We also have tandem bicycles that is part of kind of under the umbrella of Achilles.

20:30If you want to try to hop on a tandem bike, maybe you are a cyclist. Maybe you wanted to ride a bike, but because of vision loss, that's a barrier. Well, come try a tandem. And that's what we did last Thursday. And I had somebody, I literally had a conversation. I didn't think I was going to like this. I can't wait for the next one. And that's what I would advise. And that's when you know you're doing it right, is people, "Hey, I want to come back." Wow, I love this so much.

21:04Thank you both for sharing the stories, of course, and really just the enthusiasm for both of you. As you talk about this, it's clear just how much you're getting from this. And that may not have been when either of you started. You may have thought, "Well, this is just a thing to do, a thing to try." And suddenly it's grown to be an important part of your lives, and I love hearing about that. For those of you who are listening, we will, of course, have the Achilles International link in our show notes.

21:42And I hope that if you're listening and you've been considering something like this, if this didn't persuade you to jump off the couch and try something, I'm not sure because I'm about to look at the brand new Charlotte chapter. So thank you both again for sharing with us. Thank you so much, Ricky. Thank you for having us, Ricky. Got something to say? Share your thoughts about this episode of Hadley Presents or make suggestions for future episodes.

22:14We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at [email protected]. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T at HadleyHelps.org. Or leave us a message at 847-784-2870. Thanks for listening.