HOUSTON — At the Chevron Houston Marathon on Sunday, a local organization, EyeCan, will help several runners who are visually impaired compete.
Running for hours at a time seems like it would be hard enough, but for athletes like Kevin Orcel, running to a finish line is just the start.
"When I was nine months old, I was playing on a table. Ran off the table, not because I was playing, but because I didn't just didn't see the edge. From that moment, when I went to the doctor, that's when they actually discovered like, yes, he does have glaucoma, and it's severe," Kevin said.
This will be Kevin's seventh time participating in the race, but getting here has been a journey that began as a child in Haiti.
"It took my parents about 10 years to get immigration paperwork and everything processed just for me to be able to get to the United States," he said.
Kevin was able to go to school in Florida where he learned adaptive sports.
"I think sports is one of those very rare kind of entities that teaches you a lot more that you can implement in your life," he said.
And thanks to his now fiancé, who's also visually impaired and a stellar track athlete, Kevin became a runner.
Races like these are made possible by guides like Adam Smooke – who's part of EyeCan Alliance – the organization helping 38 visually impaired runners navigate the course.
"We do little series of gentle nudges and a lot of verbal cues in order to be able to run through Houston's city streets," EyeCan guide Adam said.
But it's the athletes who Smooke said have shown him a thing or two.
"It really has inspired me, it's been very inspirational in terms of learning and understanding how you can go through all this task of being able to go that far," he said. "And have your eyes closed."
Mike Tubiak is another runner who's visually impaired.
"Once it goes it… once it goes into that donut, like, I don't see my hand, it's gone. And then it goes back and I see my hand again," Mike said, explaining his vision.
The relationships they build with their guides can become long-lasting friendships.
"We're definitely friends on Facebook or whatever. There's definitely certain ones that you just know that I'm gonna, I'm not gonna go anywhere like you're kind of stuck with me," Mike said.
And for Kevin – who works for the New Jersey Devils' Youth Foundation – sports have taught him that the only person who needs to see your goal is yourself.
"Just break it down and then you can accomplish it. It is going to surprise other people. But it's like, like, I'm blind. I'm not physically incapable of running, you know, long distance," he said.