MIND & BODY -- YOUR HEALTH
At Pasadena City College, the goal is to help people move forward in their lives. At the L.A. Marathon on Sunday, March 7, four college employees will be moving forward in dogged style, but out in front of them all will be a PCC student who is legally blind.

Adrian Broca, 27, a PCC business and accounting student transferring to Cal State L.A., suffers from hereditary optic neuropathy and can barely see enough to follow lines on the road and the shapes of runners in front. He will be in his fourth Marathon this year, closing in on his ultimate goal of three hours.

Emy Lu Weller, a counselor in the disabled student programs department at PCC, would like to run along with Broca, but he's so fast he'll be ahead of her all the way. Weller, 55, is running for her fifth time this year.

"Adrian is a phenomenal runner, an inspiration," Weller said. "I've brought him to my counseling class to talk to learning-disabled students who were discouraged after failing their math classes several times. Adrian told them about losing his sight and losing all hope, then regaining it again when he rediscovered running," Weller said. "He's proof that if you believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything. Adrian shows my students what it means to keep at it and not give up."

As a high school student at age 18, Broca realized one day that his eyesight was suddenly not normal. "At first I lost my central vision, but I could still see clearly out of my peripheral vision," Broca said. "I thought that wasn't so bad; I could still function as a normal human being. I thought maybe people wouldn't even notice that I couldn't see. But that only lasted three months before I started losing the rest of my sight and everything was blurry."

He was a cross-country runner at the time, but had to give it up because he was losing his way in his races. For him it was as though meaning had drained out of his life. He entered a deep depression for several years, barely graduating high school despite special support programs at Temple City High.

"It took me a couple of years before I started even walking around my neighborhood," he said. "Then I began to realize I could tell the difference between the gray of the sidewalk and the black of the street and I could use that as a guideline. I started learning cues of what obstacles looked like."

Tentatively, he began jogging again.
"One Sunday I woke up and turned on the TV. The LA Marathon was going on," Broca said. "I told myself that if I can walk and jog on the streets, I can go out there and try it." In 2001, he ran the marathon for the first time, following runners whose blurry shapes ahead of him kept him on course. His finishing time was a very respectable 3 hours 42 minutes.

"When I run, it helps me regain my freedom and independence," he says. "When I'm out there I don't feel disabled at all. I learn to trust my other senses like sound and smell. I really notice when I pass a good restaurant!"

For this year's race, Broca has upped his practice regimen to 120 miles a week.

He jogs 8-minute miles on a course of quiet residential streets that he's memorized in every blurry detail.

"After 20 miles, I'm not even tired," he said. "In my heart I know I can make 3 hours, 10 minutes, and break the three-hour barrier next year," Broca said.

In his heart, also, is a non-profit organization started by his younger brother Erik, called ODKA - the Organization for Disabled Kids of America, which primarily supports children with visual impairments.

Erik also lost his eyesight to the same hereditary problem as Adrian, but Erik was one of the lucky few whose sight partially returned.
After his second marathon, Adrian decided to spend more time with Erik and ODKA, to extend the benefits of his passion to the disabled kids.

"I try to talk to the kids about things they want to accomplish," Broca said.
"Running is the thing I'm putting myself into. For these kids it could be acting or music or science. I tell them, don't use your disability as an excuse! You can pretty much accomplish anything if you set your mind to it. It's easier said than done, but I'm someone who's done it!"