The Honolulu Marathon expo opened Thursday at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center, and a record 35,000 people will take part in the road races this weekend.
Oʻahu resident Marri Murdoch will be among those running their first marathon. Murdoch is also legally blind.
The Minnesota native has always been a runner — it's her passion, mental stimulation and stress relief. However, she lost part of her peripheral vision in 2017 due to a stroke.
Murdoch said she can’t see anything on her left. It’s not blurry or black, it just doesn’t exist. After losing her sight, she went to Minnesota to recover, then moved to Hawaiʻi over three years ago.
Since then, she rejoined her passion and has been slowly working up to the 26.2-mile race. She said the blind community is her motivation.
"I found home and a safe space within that community, unlike any other community that I've ever been a part of. There was just this huge moment of relief when I first got introduced to the world of blindness because I was navigating it by myself for so long, and that uplifting amazing feeling of being heard and understood — that is what I carry with me, and I want to extend that feeling to every blind individual that I meet," she said.
Murdoch created a nonprofit called Travel Visions Aloha for the Blind to do just that. It creates inclusive outdoor experiences for people who are blind.
She said many people from the blind community have reached out to her, looking to run and get active.
"I want to empower the blind to see the world. I want to uplift every single person that I can in both the blind and the sighted worlds to really unify the communities and build that mutual understanding — shed the stigma around blindness and around what it means to be a blind person," she said.
The Honolulu Marathon and Start to Park 10K start at 5 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 8. Click here to learn more about the weekend road closures.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Dec. 5, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
