how did we do?

hi! i know i promised to post earlier, but i've been REALLY busy. ok, so at the race it was amazing! it felt so good to be able to finish it and put all our practice to the test. my mom and i argued but overall i really liked it. My mom's cousin, Leslie, Sawyer's mom, came in first for women's blindfold and i raised over 3,ooo dollars! after the race we spent the whole day with sawyer and his sister riley. That was like the cherry on top of my ice cream sundae. it was so great to see them!

today's the day

hi-
wow! this is probably my earliest morning post. Why would a teenager be up at 7:30 on a saturday morning? Well, if they're going to Boston to run a 5K they might. Yup, all the training and fundraising all comes down to this. I'm ready and wicked excited. Tomorrow, i'll do a final post or two on how the race went.

bye
Rachel

Bima baskets

Ok
at my temple we have these baskets put on a step in front of the bima on both sides. Some people put flowers in them, some people put food to donate, some people put toys, and some people even put in dog or cat food and toys. Not many people ever put in books though, especially not braille books, but i am. We went to the national Braille Press website and chose books that i had liked when i was younger or that i know people will like. We chose things like Harry Potter, and Shel Silverstein books. We obviously chose the book that i helped to make, Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. After my Bat Mitzvah these books will be donated to Perkins School for the Blind, the school where my cousin Sawyer goes.

byee<33
Rachel

2nd training session

Hi
On Thursday i went to a second session at the Roberto Clemente field. The track there is the final stretch of the race. We practiced running without the blindfold and just being tethered together. Then we did 2 laps with the blindfold and tether. My mom and i still need to work on our communication but we are going to practice all week. After running the laps we practiced running from the sidewalk to the grass because there will be one part of the race where we need to run down a ramp to get to the track. Lisa, one of the instructors, told us that if we hadn't practiced that piece of the run it would be much harder for us on race day.

Before we ran we learned some courtesy rules for when you are with a person that is blind. Joe, one of our instructors that was blind, taught us that you should introduce everyone in the room so that the person who is blind knows who else is their and can get to know people by recognizing their voice. I also learned that when someone who is blind is talking to you, you cannot just walk away. That would be BEYOND rude. just tell them that you have to leave so that they know you are going. He said that you shouldn't come up to someone and ask if they need any help just because you know they
are blind, that's like saying that you don't think they are as capable of things as a sighted person. It's nice to know these things because you would never want to offend someone without realizing it.

Just to give you guys an update, I have raised $1,976 and that's just online!This means so much to me and i am glad to be able to participate in such a cool thing

byee<33
Rachel

Check out the training videos

On the side of the page is the link to some Vision 5K video on You Tube.

Training Session

Hi
I didn’t get my blog out yesterday because the training plus my soccer game after that wore me out! But I do want to talk about the training we did yesterday. We learned lots of new tips like:
- you can count out distances in time or whatever unit is more comfortable to you
- communication helps
- give warning before a turn
- make sure that there isn’t too much tension on the tether so that you can freely move your arms when running
All of these tips will help me for the race.

The feeling when you have the blindfold on is different. It doesn’t feel like you shouldn’t be running - I didn't feel like I couldn't do it with the blindfold. It also feels like you have to prove to anyone who doesn’t believe that people who are blind are capable of anything that they truly are. But the horrible thing about that feeling is that you shouldn’t have to prove anything. People shouldn’t judge others based on one thing. And it shouldn’t be on something they have no control over. A person can’t change that they are blind but they can show others that it doesn’t change whom they are or what they can do.

I wrote Thank You cards and a Thank You email to the people that contributed already.
Bye
Rachel

Our First Run Together

hi,
today my mom and i went running. We started out walking, no blindfold, with a tether. Then we put the blindfold on me and walked again. it was an odd feeling and completely different to me. we started to jog. We really weren't going very fast. At times i wanted to take the blindfold off because i felt uncomfortable not knowing where i was going. I didn't remove the blindfold because to anyone who is blind taking the blindfold off isn't an option. There isn't a blindfold to them. I had never thought about what it is like to truly not look at where you are going. This is a challenge that is totally new to me.

I started writing thank you notes to people who have donated. my mom is making me do these now so i can keep up with them. when the vision 5K is done i'll have plenty of bat mitzvah thank you cards to write too!

keep you posted on our next runs...

tips:
bandanas work as pretty good blindfolds
an elastic headband worked as a tether
try the tether on both hands so you know which is better for you, once you find out, don't keep switching back and forth
for the guide learn to estimate how many steps it will take for certain distances so you can count off for the blindfolded runner

thanks
rachel