Achilles Runners Confront Challenges Together
The Achilles Kids chapter meets 30 minutes before the main group, and one of the junior runners, Kieron Ragoonath, often stays to run with the adult chapter. Ragoonath, 17, has already run seven half marathons and plans to run the New York City Marathon in November. Ragoonath is on the autism spectrum, and his father, Kris Ragoonath, said that in the five years that his daughter has been racing with Achilles, he has become much more vocal.
Kieron Ragoonath, who loves Spider-Man, said, “It’s like your own superhero team,” comparing Achilles’ runners and guides to the Avengers.
Their neon shirts aren’t superhero costumes, but they are effective advertisements for the group.
Christian Metzler was born without part of one leg and competed on maladaptive sports teams during high school. When he moved to New York six years ago, he started running and kept seeing those jerseys. Over Memorial Day weekend, he attended his first Achilles practice. Metzler is used to running without guides, but he said he appreciates the visibility Achilles brings to adaptive sports, especially for people who might not otherwise participate. And he will be back.
“The community aspect is what makes it so much fun to be here,” he said.
Metzler wasn’t the only newcomer that Saturday. Four first-time volunteers applied to learn how to be guides. Training for new guides is always done by runners who are blind or have vision problems because they are the ones that require the most work from the guides, Magisano told them. Once the guides learn to work with them, it’s easy to learn the nuances for runners with different disabilities.
Simon Isakov, who is also blind, pulled out a rope, which is basically a rope or band with loops at each end, that the runner and guide use to stay together. As the guide moves through the course, the runner can feel the movement through the leash. Magisano also spoke them through verbal guidance, or letting the rider know if there was a turn in the course, puddle or pothole coming up.
