Visually impaired rugby athlete to do 3 half marathons for charity

Aaron Fowler, 33, from Berkshire. who is a physio for the NHS, is doing 3 half marathons for the England visually impaired rugby team.

Aaron has a visual impairment called retinitis pigmentosa and was diagnosed when he was five years old. It is a deteriorating eye condition which causes tunnel vision and night blindness.

Over the years, you know, my sight's got a lot worse. So, you know, when I was younger at school, I didn't really have much support, any changes. And then when I was about 14 is when it started to deteriorate quite a lot. When I was 15, I started to develop something called macular edema, which is like a buildup of fluid behind the center of the eye and that can affect the central vision. When I was 21, I was diagnosed with cataracts as well, which can also affect your central vision as well. I'm now down to sort of, I have about 5% vision in my eyes. So I only see about 5% of what a fully sighted person sees. My central vision is quite decent, but my peripheral vision is non-existent.

The VI rugby team sport was established by a charity called the Change Foundation who are based in Croydon back in 2015. The Change Foundation are a charity who have many different programs who help people from kind of disadvantaged backgrounds.

Visually impaired rugby has kind of really flourished and really grown over the last 10 years and for Aaron, it started with a international tour in 2019.

It was the first ever kind of tour as an England side, which I was part of. We went to Japan and played a three match series up there, which we won. Covid's kind of obviously affected things quite a bit. But as a team, we did a lot of fundraising for the sport. And then back in 2023, we went out to Toulon to play a sort of tournament with Ireland and France, which we won. And then in November of 2024, Japan and Ireland came over for a tournament at Sutton Epson Rugby Club, which was a brilliant day. We won the tournament again, which was really good.

We've grown the game domestically, so we now train at Sutton and Epson Rugby Club and we've also got sessions off at Stockport Rugby Club in Manchester. There's also sessions in Cardiff as well for anyone living in Wales. And we've got this year more domestic tournaments and a real focus of trying to get more players into the game.

He was aware of the sport not after it started, but due to work commitments wasn't able to make it. However, around March, April of 2019 and just fell in love with the sport.

I really enjoyed it. You know, really enjoyed the people that I met. And yeah, I've been going near enough every session ever since.

He's raising money for the Change Foundation to help with the development of the sport.

So, you know, our sport at the moment, we don't receive any funding from the RFU or anywhere like that you know so we're completely reliant on donations and fundraising. So, you know, for example, if we have another international tournament, then the funds could be used to help towards that can be helped towards, you know, you have to buy kit. Anything like that, to be honest. There's a big cost involved with playing vision paired rugby so for example uh you know uh we players obviously travel from quite far to come down to training, you know, the last Since I've been playing you know we've had people traveling down to London from Manchester, York. Someone coming over from Northern Ireland. So, you know, there's big costs involved to players. And, you know, people with disabilities aren't always in the best paid jobs either. You know, I think visually impaired employment rate amongst visually impaired people is only around 30%. So, you know, anything I can do to help, you know, and that's going to help grow the game, I think is a good thing.

He decided to do half marathons, but why?

It kind of started out as a bit of a personal challenge. I've done the London Marathon back in 2018 and I've done a half marathon before. I do quite a bit of running. And I've done quite a lot of kind of challenges in the past. And just, I think originally I've run with my friend Mike who runs as my guide runner quite often. And we just talked about signing up for half marathons. We signed up for Wokenham half in Berkshire where I live, and then they messaged me saying, well, how about the farmborough half?

And then my friend Matt who runs as my Guide Runner said, well, how about doing the run half marathon in March as well. So I thought I'd doing the three half marathons, I thought I might as well use it as a chance to kind of try and raise some money as well. So yeah, that's how the idea came about.

I asked him about how guide runners enter the marathon circles, as comparing to the usual sign up for a runner and he explained it;

Guide runners usually get free place in running events, so I just have to email the organizers to let them know that I've entered and ask for a free place runner. Put it easier than just put it in, they accommodate well. And then they send you details of how to register them so yeah all events are very accommodating. And when I run with a guide runner, we have like a tether that we both hold on to. So it has like a small handle that you both hold on to. And then obviously my guide runner gives me lots of verbal instructions when we're running along.

Even thought I've got good central vision. So I can see kind of what's directly in front of me, but I can't see people like, you know, if they were to cut me up from the sides or anything like that or you know sometimes seeing curves, you know, schools, things like that. So that's where, you know, a good guide runner comes in handy. Sort of navigate your own course.

Visual impaired rugby has a few differences compared to rugby itself - so vision impaired rugby is a seven aside touch version of the game.

Aaron mentions further, stating that;

Our pitch is about two-thirds to three quarters the size of a full-size rugby pitch It's a bit like rugby league. When you get tackled, you have to put the ball down between your legs. A tackle is made with a one-handed touch to the body. After six tackles, the ball gets turned over again a bit like in rugby league. We don't have conversions, so it's a bit more like the rules of touch rugby where you just have tries. Scrums and line outs are uncontested. We play two halves of 10 minutes each. The ball has ball bearings in it to sort of make it a bit more audible. Yeah, other than that, it's kind of rugby as you know it, really.

Aaron ends the conversation saying that he thinks everyone involved with the sport is very passionate about continuing to grow the game, both domestically and internationally and to get it established in more countries as well.

Well, VI rugby sport is picking up on the international stage too.

Yeah, it's definitely picking up. I mean, the plan is this year to potentially get it started in a new country as well. Yeah, no, that's good.

To find out more about the Foundation as a charity, click on this link - https://www.thechangefoundation.org.uk/visually-impaired-rugby/.

If you're interested in Aaron's marathon journies, look here for more information - https://donate.giveasyoulive.com/fundraising/three-half-marathons-for-virugby?fbclid=IwY2xjawH6Lx5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHb36-XSrQt6nY4lWnMft2lNTXqExoOZtKgPQNz0It0D662MOG7CGtcVU9Q_aem_oe9gZU17Zl1uvvnd9KUhxQ.