[Tilly Dowler, a runner who is visually impaired, running near Buckingham Palace with her guide, training for the upcoming London Marathon]
[Tilly Dowler running in St. James Park, training for the London Marathon with a guide runner, while wearing the Meta Oakley Vanguard sunglasses]
Tilly Dowler (interview): “My main mission was not to run the marathon in a quick time, to get an amazing PB, to do it for them reasons. My mission was to inspire other people with sight loss and not only sight loss, people with other disabilities or people going through something that they think is really really hard and really tough and inspire them to believe in themselves and you can do anything you put your mind to.”
[Tilly Dowler operating the volume swipe function on the Meta Oakley Vanguard sunglasses]
[Central camera and light indicator on the sunglasses]
Tilly Dowler (interview): “So to turn the volume up and down, it’s instant. You just slide along the touchpad. These are the Meta Oakley Vanguard glasses. They’re amazing for looking through them because they cover all of my eyes, not just the front and the centre, they cover the sides. There’s different nose straps that are adjustable so I can have them as close or as far away from my face. But not only that, they are AI assisted. So while running, I can ask for live cues, such as what landmarks are around me, how far have I ran already. I can put my music on but still be able to listen to my guide runner because while having headphones in you can’t hear the cues of ‘come to the left a little bit’, ‘there’s a bump there’ or ‘down the curb’.”
[Tilly Dowler doing stretches and warm-up exercises in front of Buckingham Palace]
[Sha Khan, an ultra-runner who is visually impaired, running in a park, training with his two guide runners]
[Sha and his guide dog, called Moby, sitting in the park]
Sha Khan (interview): “As I’m running along I’ll have two guide runners with me who will be telling me what’s going on around me and you know if they say to me oh that’s Big Ben ahead of us I can just say hey Meta take a picture or if I want to know what time it is I can just say hey Meta what’s the time? Meta is like such a big part of my life now.”
[Sha Khan’s guide dog Moby]
Sha Khan (interview): “My eyesight deteriorated in 2021, so just a few years ago. When that happened, my mental health took a huge crash. And in me talking about what I was going through at the time, made me realize that men just aren’t talking about their mental health and how they feel. And I always heard about that, but I experienced that first hand. The running community got me into running in order to try and help with my mental health and I thought well, I’ll give it a try and it’s the best decision I made, ever.”
[Sha Khan doing stretches and warming up near Buckingham Palace]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.