Volunteers providing sighted assistance can make such a huge difference in how blind and vision impaired people approach their chosen sport or physical activity.

Vision impaired runner and snow skier Kyle Robidoux chats with us about his involvement working with volunteers and peer support groups for MABVI (Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired). He also explains the various ways that he uses sighted guides to assist him to enjoy his chosen sports of long distance running and alpine skiing.

Kyle's blog can be found at http://www.blindbeerrunner.blogspot.com

This is a great conversation and I hope you find it both entertaining and educational.

For your reference, some initiatives that have been created to match blind/vision impaired runners with sighted running guides are:United In Stride http://www.unitedinstride.comAchilles International http://www.achillesinternational.org

Also check out these two groups on Facebook, Running Eyes, bringing Guides & Visually Impaired runners/joggers together and Visually Impaired and Blind Runners and Guides

For tandem cycling check out Blind Stokers Club http://www.blindstokersclub.org

Of course volunteers are everywhere so do contact your local sports club or blindness organisation to see if they can assist with sourcing and matching you up with the right people.

I also include some motivational quotations.

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Cheers, Mike.