Meet Keryl Rustin — a 74-year-old woman who is blind and who just competed in her second National Senior Games 5K run.
The resident of Kearneysville, West Virginia, also ran the 2022 5K unassisted and unnoticed — but this year, things were different.
On the rainy morning of July 9, Rustin ran the annual 5K for the second time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — this time with a local running guide.
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Rustin placed 15th in her age group by finishing the race in just 45 minutes.
Although it was a new challenge, Rustin said she was up for the fight.
Rustin decided to run her first National Senior Games race last year, after spending the last couple of years running races and training with her seven-year-old granddaughter, Gabbi.
"She was the one who would go out with me early in the morning … if there wasn’t any school. And she would run with me and give me cues," she said in comments shared with Fox News Digital by the National Senior Games.
Cues such as pointing out a change in pavement or a curve in the road were important for Rustin to know ahead of time — noting her granddaughter essentially taught her how to run blind.
Since her start of training in 2020, Rustin has run roughly 15 races.
She ran her first National Senior Games 5K in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2022.
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Rustin had planned on using a direction app to help guide her through the route, but the app malfunctioned before the race — leaving her no choice but to run it completely by herself.
"It was very challenging, to say the least," she said to National Senior Games.
Rustin said she finished the race by listening to the sounds of the other runners’ footsteps and voices as they yelled directions at her.
"It was really challenging because I knocked down all of the cones," she recalled.
This year, however, Rustin came back better prepared with a local Pittsburgh runner named Kenneth Lee.
Lee is an avid runner and even ran parts of the 5K route when he was in high school — noting he knew the area very well.
Rustin said the two met through mutual friends. But they did not meet in person until the day before the race.
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Lee, who had never guided a visually impaired person before, said Rustin ran like a champion.
"She’s got good balance … She knows how to listen and guide herself in a way," he said.
Rustin said having Lee with her throughout the race was a nice addition. The two of them finished the race in roughly 45 minutes.
"He never complained about anything as far as having any apprehension about running with a blind person," she said.
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Rustin even sped up and crossed the finish line before Lee — with the runner noting he was a "very conscientious and caring" person.
When asked if Rustin would be continuing her running career, she instantly responded, "Yes."
"I’m definitely not stopping … This is just the beginning," she said.
National Senior Games is an organization that hosts annual games to promote living a healthy lifestyle no matter the person's age.
In 2022, the organization hosted 21 different sports and over 12,000 athletes to the two week-long games, according to the National Senior Games Association, which is based in Clearwater, Florida.
