I’ve been thinking about this a long time, but have never really known where to start.
I’d like to change my relationship to triathlon for a while, and rather than focusing on my personal goals, I want to help another athlete achieve theirs. In particular, I’d love to support a blind athlete finish an Ironman.
For those who have done this, where did you start? Did you train locally with your partner athlete? I assume that would be essential, to bond as a team and learn each other’s ques? Did you start with single event races (e.g., guiding a swim, a run, etc.) and/or shorter distance events, or just jump right in?
If you are an American you may want to check out your local VA. I had a friend that worked for them and got me to "guide "
a few VA runners in events. Big fields do require some skill. I would start with smaller events and move up if you find it suits you.
I raced with Aaron Scheidies to help him be the first blind triathlete to go under 2 hours in an Olympic distance triathlon (Dallas US Open 2007), guided him to a couple of his world championship titles and was his “pilot†in Paralympic cycling for 2016 Rio games. That all started because we happened to be living in Seattle at the same time and became friends.
It’s nice to train with the athlete, but so long as you have enough time with them to understand what they need and be in tune with each other it’s not absolutely critical. Experienced athletes can train a guide in a very short amount of time (first time I raced with Aaron we only rode together twice ahead of time plus one run and one swim).
That said, there’s a great feeling of really being in sync with another athlete, and that only comes with practice and time. Racing in Rio after a year of consistently training and racing with Aaron is one of my favorite memories as an athlete.
Where to find a partner? Achilles is a great resource, I haven’t worked with them but I see them on Saturday mornings in Santa Monica doing group runs. I can recommend USABA (US association of blind athletes), or Challenged Athlete Foundation (CAF) as other good places to start out. Local tri clubs and Facebook are another resource. Most of the time visually impaired athletes are eager to find guides that can keep up and also devote training time. Finding someone who is willing to put their own goals aside to help is not easy. For me as a guide it wasn’t easy either. I had to forgo prize money races at a time when that was my source of income. Ultimately it kept my heart in triathlon at a time I was feeling burnt out, and the sacrifice was well worth it.
Thanks for moving in this direction–I have a teammate on Tower26 who is also doing it, and one of our coaches is associated with Dare2Tri. I’d be happy to connect you with them if you want a real person to talk to instead of just a website to reference.
I’ve recently had the same idea. For me the best resource was starting local. Talking to local clubs and teams was the ticket to get me pointed in the right direction.
My cousin (who is Deaf/Blind) is/was friends with Aaron Scheidies and when I started triathlon, we talked about it, and I looked into this concept briefly. My cousin has done phenomenal achievements as a deaf/blind man, but he also lives in Seattle while I was far away (Dallas at the time).
With that said, I now live in Michigan and have worked with MyTeamTriumph on a few occasions. Most of those are Sprint/Olympic, but there are a couple of guides (“angels”) who are doing 1/2 and full races with their “captains”.
I raced with Aaron Scheidies to help him be the first blind triathlete to go under 2 hours in an Olympic distance triathlon (Dallas US Open 2007), guided him to a couple of his world championship titles and was his “pilot†in Paralympic cycling for 2016 Rio games. That all started because we happened to be living in Seattle at the same time and became friends.
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-Ben Collins