Rachel Hastings does what she can to stay out of the shadows. First off, shade can be dangerous for the legally-blind teenager as she runs in the woods near her Maple Grove home. With only limited vision in her left eye, the lack of light could result in her tripping and injuring herself. Secondly, she runs, plays piano, cooks and maintained a 4.0 grade-point average because she didn’t want to be in the shadows of society. She didn’t want to be remembered as “the blind girl.”
And later this month, the 19-year-old young woman will be the first known blind person to compete in the four-year history of the Maple Grove Half Marathon and 5K. With her mother, Sally, leading the way, Rachel hopes to navigate the 13.1-mile course in less than two hours. “You wouldn’t even believe this girl; she is amazing,” Sally Hastings says of her daughter. “There is really nothing she can’t do, I don’t think. … She is very independent. You would never know. People forget that she is legally blind because she does so much.”
Before she was water skiing as a teenager, Rachel had to learn to overcome a rare birth defect called bilateral coloboma, where eyes don’t completely develop. She’s blind in her right eye, and in her left, she can only see some colors and drastic differences in light.
Despite the limitations, Rachel’s parents didn’t coddle her. “She is expected to do everything that everyone else does,” Sally says. “That’s how we raised her. She has her chores and has to keep her room clean, clean her own bathroom and on nights that I can’t cook, she cooks. It’s trying to hold her accountable over the years because you don’t want her to feel different.”
But she was different. At a young age, Rachel’s parents realized her hearing was very acute, so they paired her with a keyboard, and later, piano lessons at age 8. She wasn’t a virtuoso at first; she just had vitriol for it. “In essence, I equated my vision with my music, and I hated music because I felt like it was the only thing that I could do,” Rachel says. “I just didn’t like being different, and I went through a time when my vision was very frustrating to me.”
Rachel’s parents kept her in piano lessons, and the girl with perfect pitch became harmonious with it. “Since my view changed, I started liking who I was and I realized that I could do anything I put myself into,” says Rachel, whose short list of limitations include driving. “My passion for music came back.”
After graduating from Maranatha Christian Academy in June 2010, the pianist and singer has taken the year to practice up to 50 hours a week and is applying for music colleges this fall. “Rachel is extremely diligent in everything she does; she works for excellence,” says Nancy Stein, vocal music teacher at Maranatha Christian Academy.
Rachel’s emergence from the shadows was inspired in a pep talk from her father, John. He asked: “What do you want to be remembered for when you graduate from high school?” She replied: “I want to be remembered as the girl that, even though she was born legally blind, was a go-getter and that I pursued my passions and I didn’t let my vision stop me.”
As a sophomore, Rachel competed in the one- and two-mile on the Maranatha track team. When one of her guide runners couldn’t make it, Sally, a lifelong runner, guided Rachel around the course. Running the Maple Grove Half Marathon became a chance for mother-daughter bonding before Rachel heads off to college. Through winter, Rachel logged about 35 miles a week on the in-house treadmill, and come race day, Sally will wear a brightly colored T-shirt and lead Rachel through Maple Grove.
If you see the mother-daughter duo in the daylight of race day, cheer for them. Rachel will hear you.
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The Maple Grove Half Marathon and 5K is coming up on May 14, and volunteers can step up until May 11. Race co-founder and volunteer coordinator Paul Wisnewski needs course marshals, volunteers at the Maple Grove High School stadium and helpers at the six water stations. “This is a great activity for scout troops, church groups, civic clubs and small businesses,” Wisnewski says. To help, give him a call at 763.607.3448.
