Marla Runyan Research Paper

Marla Runyan: a Visually Impaired Athlete

Marla Runyan is an Olympic athlete that once said, “If I break a national record, maybe they will stop writing about my eyes” (LaFontaine 228). Marla Runyan is blind; or to be more specific, she has Stargardt's disease.

There are 285 million people that are visually impaired in the world. Of those people, 248 million have low vision and thirty- nine million are blind (WHO). The causes of blindness fall into two categories: natural causes and environmental causes. Cataracts, the clouding of the eye’s normally cleared lens (Landau 20), glaucoma (16), and macular degeneration (22) could all be put into the category of natural causes. Equally important, the environment can also have a huge impact on the condition of the eyes. Exposure to chemicals (30) and punctures in the eye (29) can cause a person to go blind. Next, symptoms of blindness may include tilting the head to the side to better focus on an object, holding an object unusually close (24), blurred vision that glasses cannot fix, and double vision (27). Other symptoms of blindness could be eye pressure or

pain (28), reduction of vision, and pain around the eye (32).
Some people that are visually impaired will need help getting around, and others will not. If someone is blind, they might carry a guide cane or have a guide dog. To read, blind people can feel braille (Marcovitz 45) or use a large magnifying lens (Abbey 93). In addition, barcode scanners (Marcovitz 80) and people taking notes for blind students (Newsmakers) are other forms of help. Lastly, the limitations of being blind are equally important . Visually impaired people face discrimination (Marcovitz 53) and cannot work in certain jobs. They also cannot play certain sports and games because they cannot see what is happening.
Marla Runyan was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, the progressive degeneration of the retina (LaFontaine 228), when she was eleven (Abbey 91). Her vision loss started at age nine and when she turned fourteen, she wasn’t able to see a ball (LaFontaine 229). In grade school and junior high school, Marla had to quit gymnastics and soccer because she could no longer see what she was doing.
To cope with her disability, Marla began to run track (LaFontaine 229).

She started specializing in high school high jump and still maintained a “spotless academic record” (Newsmakers). When she couldn’t see the board or had trouble taking notes, Marla would hire a student to take notes for her or she would just record the lesson and take notes later (Newsmakers). After experience, Marla’s disability does not affect her that much. She still has some peripheral vision and can see blurs. When she was a child, she had to quit most sports, but then picked up new ones like track because she didn’t have to see as many small objects. While she was in school, some people felt sorry for her and felt that she could not do things, but that only motivated her to do better because she wanted to prove them wrong. In some ways, being blind is a good thing; it can be

motivation.
Marla Runyan is so much more than just “someone who is blind.” Even though she is legally blind, Marla got a California driver’s license (LaFontaine 229). She excelled in academics, graduating high school with a 3.98-grade point average and then earned a master’s degree in education for the handicapped. After that, she worked as a teacher for the blind and deaf in San Diego (Abbey 96). Once she retired as a teacher, she began running professionally. Marla competed in the 1992 Paralympics in Spain, the Pan Am Games, the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships, the World Championships in Spain (LaFontaine 228 ), the Western Athletic Conference Finals (Abbey 95), the US Association of Blind Athletes (Abbey 96), and the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia (Abbey 99). Not only was she the first blind runner to ever compete in the Olympics, but she also won gold at the Pan Am Games and US Association of Blind Athletes (Abbey 96).
There were two types of people that inspired Marla to overcome her disease: her doctors and her parents. “She is not going to be able to do this, she’s not going to be able to do that. He was making predictions on how I would function: I would become a C student. I don’t want to blame him, but he was really speaking beyond his scope” (VLR). Marla is talking about how her doctor was predicting the future for her. By telling Marla that she couldn’t do certain things that she could before, he was motivating her to do better. “ I remember becoming very angry. It kind of became the fire to motivate me” (VLR). She wanted to prove him wrong. Marla’s parents helped Marla overcome her disease by letting her try new things. “They were leaving the door open to just kind of go for it. They knew I might not always succeed, but they let me do that” (VLR).
In conclusion, blindness affects many people. Even though it can be difficult, there are ways to cope and deal with the disease. Marla Runyan is an example of someone who overcame blindness and then moved on to do spectacular things, such as being the first blind person to compete in the Olympics.