Emdad Rahman
Barking parkrun welcomed two blind runners who joined locals and tourists for the last run event of 2018.
Severine Renard from Liege, Belgium completed the race alongside her pacer Andy Hiller. She said, “The atmosphere has been friendly. I have been a parkrun fan since 2012 and my best time is 27.50. Thank you to Andy and the team at Barking parkrun for taking care of me.”
The second runner was Chris Blackabee, a local lad who now lives in Hereford. He was paced and supported by his friend Derek Petrie.
Blackabee, an experienced runner finished strongly. He commented, “I do like to travel a bit and have been doing parkrun for ten years. Barking is a great location and the fellow runners have been very friendly. I’m hoping I got a good time today as the course and the general pace felt good.”
According to the Royal National Institute of Blind People over two million people in the UK live with sight loss. That’s around one person in 30. Of these, around 360,000 people are registered with their local authority as blind or partially sighted. It is predicted that by 2020 the number of people with sight loss will rise to over 2,250,000.
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