Robbie Huff, 38, and Ken Mitchell, 60, weren’t sure if they would finish the AJC Peachtree Road Race on Saturday. Both blind, they were completing the race with mobility canes, but when the rain came, they were struggling.
That’s when Ursula Monroe, 46, spotted the two and decided she would help.
“Because of the rain delay, everybody is shuffling and they can’t shuffle as much because it’s raining and there was a big median and Ken almost fell,” Monroe said. “I wanted to just grab him and make sure they were OK.”
Monroe said she was about to leave and go home, but decided to stay and help.
“With the rain delay, it was just too much waiting around so I was just going to leave,” she said. “But with them, I felt like if they could do it I could still walk it in the rain like they did. So we did it and we’re done.”
The friends and Atlanta residents volunteered at last year’s race, but Huff was determined to complete the race this year.
Unlike Huff, Mitchell isn’t a first-time runner as he completed the race every year from 1993-99, before he began losing his vision. This run was his first with his cane and deteriorated vision.
“I’ve always wanted to do it, before I began losing the vision, it’s always been on my to-do list,” Huff said. “So to finally get to do it is just like wow, overwhelming for me.”
Huff has been losing her vision to glaucoma for about eight years now, she said. She says her vision is very much day-to-day, some days are better than others.
“She just doesn’t know how pleasant she made this,” Huff said of Monroe as she fought back tears. “She made this experience more rewarding for me. Words would not be able to express how I feel. I’m about to start crying.”
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