ALTERNATIVE THERAPTIVE

HOW MOVEMENT AND CONNECTION ARE INCREASINGLY BEING RECOGNISED AS PART OF THE PRESCRIPTION FOR BETTER HEALTH AND WELL-BEING.

- DAVID SMYTH

EXERCISE FOR KELLY BARTON USED TO CONSIST OF WALKING CIRCUITS around the school playground, touching the wall and the fence for guidance. Born blind, Kelly attended a special school for children with sensory impairments. Running was not under consideration. As an adult, she had tried the gym and had a go at CrossFit, but felt isolated.

“When you can't see, you're reliant on people coming over to you to say hello and maybe remind you that you were in the last class with them,” she says. “You only know what's immediately around you. Everything else has to come to you a little.”

At one gym class, the group would go outside for a warm-up jog beforehand and leave her to wait on her own for them to come back.

In 2016, Kelly went to see her GP, Simon Tobin, about her asthma, and mentioned her frustrations with trying to get fitter as she approached 40. Tobin not only told her about parkrun, but arranged to collect her from home, drive her to the local event. and act as her running guide.

“I had just completed a course in learning to be a guide runner, and was desperate to practise,” he says.

Kelly had never run outdoors before; she'd only used a treadmill, holding on to the sides. That first time out with Simon, she walked more than ran, but he did his best to give her as full an experience as possible. He gave her the info she needed - ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘hill’, ‘tree roots underfoot’, what percentage of the route she had completed - but also described the scene as a whole. Who was going past? What were they wearing? What was that over there? He made her laugh.

“We kept having to stop and walk because her breath would go,” he remembers. “In hindsight, that was less about her fitness and more about all these sensations hitting her really quickly: the wind, noise, dogs, kids.

”Once she was able to calm her breathing, she finished in about 45 minutes.”