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Will Barkan reflects on ultramarathon running, low vision, and the communities he’s built to support him

Interview by Cooper Gould

Edited by Laura Alpert

Will Barkan is a busy man. He manages an international team at Google. His “side gig” is planning a wedding with his fiancée Kim, which they’ll host by the end of the year. Will also racks up dozens of miles weekly on roads and trails.

On top of that, Will made headlines as the first legally blind person to complete the Western States 100 course, a challenging ultramarathon that lasts about 30 hours. We caught up with Will to learn more about his experiences as an elite athlete with Stargardt’s disease and how connecting with United In Stride and its community of blind and visually impaired (B/VI) athletes and sighted guides helps him achieve his athletic goals. United In Stride matches B/VI athletes with guides at no cost to them throughout the U.S. and Canada. Visit www.unitedinrstride.com to learn more and sign up for your free membership.

United In Stride (UIS): How did you get into ultramarathoning?

Will: It’s evolved. In high school, I lived in a rural area of California and started trail running short trail distances. An ultra-runner coach encouraged me to run a 20K trail race. When I moved to urban areas on the East Coast trail running faded off my radar. In my 20s, I got into marathon running and road running. Then I worked in the Intelligence field for the U.S. government. I was deployed to Afghanistan multiple times to support the military. It was high stress work, and I got pretty burnt out.

So, when I came back to California, I did a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, which helped me decompress. [A thru-hike covers a long-distance trail in its entirety, typically in a single season or across multiple seasons]. Then I joined the Golden Gate Running Club in San Francisco to find ultra-runners, because I wanted to get trail running into my daily life, to be out in beautiful places and enjoy peaceful terrain. I found my people.

At 21, I trained to run the Tamalpa Headlands 50K. I wasn’t ready, and I had a very, very hard “did not finish” (DNF). Ten years later, I decided to train for the race again. I said, “I’m running the Tamalpa 50K,” and a runner asked, “Hey, have you ever used sighted guides to run?” I said, “No. What’s that?” He said, “You can work with sighted athletes to run long ultras.”

In 2017, I heard a podcast interview with Kyle Robidoux, a low-vision ultra runner. After meeting Kyle, he introduced me to Richard Hunter, a blind U.S. Veteran and ultramarathoner who founded United In Stride. I told them that I was interested in these races but didn’t want to run at night. [Ultramarathons are often so long—more than 24 hours—that a significant portion of them must be run at night]. And Kyle told me, “Actually, you can now.”

Even though my low vision was progressing, and I could hardly see at night Kyle said, “Just get guides. And if you get enough guides, you can run all night long.”

Kyle and Richard introduced me to the blind guiding community and really turned it on for me.

I started running tougher races, up to 50 miles and 100Ks with guides. I ran my first 100-miler in 2019 with a whole string of guides. That’s how I met my fiancée, Kim, while training for the Tahoe Rim Trail 100!

I kept meeting and running with more and more guides—people who I trained to guide me on the road and on the trail. It can get complicated to figure out logistics for multiple guides who need to be mountain trained. It’s not just finding a good fit, but good enough to run on seriously rocky terrain, very technical downhills, or even at elevation.

But, yeah, it all started with just getting back into trail running, and a random friend of a friend who said, “Go talk to Kyle and Richard.”

UIS: Can you tell me about the process of working with new guides? What is it like to train someone who is new to guiding?

Will: I generally start guides on the road with a tether, running side by side with me. Then, to make it more like a single track or off-road running, I’d run on the road behind the guide, because the obstacles are too varied, and you’ve got to run over what the guide runs over. The guide needs to build confidence on obstacle callouts and spacing. Thankfully, we can run early in the day on local roads that are just rough and torn up enough to gain guiding experience. Then we build up to trail guiding.

I’ve also had races where I’ve had people run with me who’ve never guided before, and some of them figure it out fast. During a road race, a guide might say, “Railroad tracks are coming up in 75 yards.” But during a trail race or a long trail run, the guide issues a callout every few seconds, like “Big step down right, rock left, boulder right, narrow, gap, low bridge, low branch,” or, “really technical, slow down, walk it, pick up your feet,” or “moose.”

“Stop” is the most important callout. In Colorado, I’ve had moose walk across the trail, and my guide said, “Moose, backing it up. Stop. Stop.” I’ve had a motorcycle chain that was just randomly tossed in the middle of the course, or barbed wire. All these things are like life: unpredictable obstacles that happen.

Getting the pacing of the callouts can be tricky. If someone tells me about some obstacle coming in 20 seconds, I’ll forget by the time we get there. They’re supposed to do the callout as they’re hitting it, and I get that half a second warning, or a couple of seconds the longer we are into a 100K or 100-miler.

Some people quickly learn how to guide. Others take more time. Either way, you start with a very basic level of guiding and build from there. I’ve known some blind trail runners who’ve just grabbed people during races to guide them and said, “You’re probably going to be okay at this,” and it’s worked out. But I also have had some guiding experiences with people who don’t know what to say stay quiet for a long time.

The biggest thing that I’ve learned is, when racing, the guide must be solely focused on guiding. If they’re running their own race and guiding you, their priorities are split. Their job is guiding. And they’re not pacers. Guiding is far more than pacing.

I give guides feedback without complaints. Speak with the guide about what’s going well or what you need a little bit more of. Kim, my fiancée, you know, love of my life, is an excellent guide and has gotten me through two tough cutoffs. She gives me details every few seconds, about grades of trails, tight turns, and things like that, which I don’t always need. But, in the words of another blind runner, “You don’t always know what you can and can’t see,” so more information is better than less.

Endurance is a big factor. Let’s say you’re running a 100-miler. If you only have 3 guides, they’re each running 30 plus miles. That’s a long time to focus on guiding. They probably don’t need to call out as often, especially in daylight, depending on the terrain and how technical it is. Practicing and learning through experience helps.

The frequency and specificity of training can be challenging. Running at night is different than running in the daytime for the guide and the blind athlete. Applied experience before race day helps. I’ll take one of my guides out a couple weeks or a month before the race and run a precarious downhill section of single track, maybe a two-mile section with a callout needed every 3 seconds.

My rule is that if I fall, it’s never the guide’s fault. The guide is there to try to help make it safer and, honestly, faster. Right up front, I tell the guides, “You are not solely accountable for me getting home unharmed. I’m doing this willingly. If I didn’t want to trip or fall, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

There’s no guarantee that you’ll be safe. You might fall. Sighted runners fall all the time.

I’ve had plenty of spills. I wear what I call “ninja gloves”. They’re padded gloves so I have extra peace of mind If I go down. I’ve had races where I’ve fallen many times, and others where I’ve not fallen once. It goes either way, but whatever happens it’s never the guide’s fault, and it’s important for them to know that.

UIS: Have any of the guides you’ve trained or introduced to guiding ever shared with you how the experience has impacted them or what the experience of learning to guide has been like?

Will: At first, when you’re blind and/or low vision and trying to work with a guide, it feels like you’re asking for a lot of help. That can be really challenging.

While it’s natural to want to be as independent as possible and have minimal support, ask for the support you need. After a while, you develop an intimate running relationship, and your guide will be 100% focused on your movement and safety. And once you get past that, having a guide improves your performance. You’re safer and doing better in the race than you would without the guide.

I’m close with every single one of the guides who were in Western States with me. There were no newbies in that crew. Everybody had guided a trail race, if not several. There was a lot of crying at the end to release the stress and emotion of getting to that point. All my guides focused so hard to get me there, and they all got to finish with me. That was huge.

My first guide at a trail race was Ethan, who I still run with, and I don’t know how many races he’s guided me. We randomly met through his wife and the running club. He was a military veteran and federal law enforcement, and we shared that common experience.

When Ethan started getting a good sense of what I can and can’t see and what running together is like, he got a much better grip on guiding. He became an expert. We go on our long runs together, so it’s less of a dependent relationship when we’re training together because we’d be doing the same kind of races. We started bonding, then quickly moved beyond the need for a guide as a volunteer. Ethan became a friend who wanted me to do well at these tough races.

These days, because I run with my fiancée Kim so much, she has the best sense of my vision. I have Stargardt’s disease, so I have a big blind spot in the middle of my eyes that keeps getting bigger or changing based on light. Kim knows the biggest danger for me isn’t random stuff on the side of the road in my periphery, it’s running straight into a car or a boulder that I don’t see at all. It’s kind of hilarious when you’ve gotten over all the roots fine, you’ve crossed the creek, no problem! Then you smack into a 6-foot-tall boulder that you would think everyone would see. The nature of my vision is that the thing that I am least likely to see is right in front of me.

Guides I’ve run with for 7 or 8 years have been adjusting their guiding because I can’t see the way I used to. With each new guide, there’s a learning curve. We calibrate the approach, and it gets better. We learn a lot about running ultramarathons and best guiding outcomes.

I found my guide Thomas on www.unitedinstride.com. Randomly, he lives about a mile from my house. He’s a big road runner who ran ultras 20 years ago. Then he started running marathons, including the Boston Marathon with Team With a Vision. [Team With A Vision and United In Stride are programs provided by the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired]. We do hill training on trails most Wednesdays or Thursdays, and every winter in the dark. Now if I’m running an ultra and get to a steep hill, I don’t really need guiding because there’s nowhere to fall. I usually have trekking poles to give me complete support. We practice running uphill at 90% to 95% exertion. During a race we spread the effort over 100 miles. I take control of the pace, and Thomas gets a break when we go uphill. I go first, then we switch back as soon as we hit another grade.

I think my favorite part is that when I race, so many of the guides haven’t met each other. They hang out together while I run with another guide and get to know each other. At the end, there’s a new group of friends. They swap guiding notes and run ultramarathons with each other. Guides meet through guiding and then go off and do their own stuff. I think for the blind running community, it broadens the sort of people we’re involving. The more people who have that experience, and the more familiar they get with guiding, the more they talk to people in the running community, which enables and improves blind running.

You keep expanding that group of people. And as you expand it for yourself, it also expands for them. The community of guides that I run with now is incredible.

UIS: Are there any races you’ve run or achievements that you’re especially proud of or where you surpassed your expectations for yourself?

Will: I did the Waldo 100K in Oregon because it was a Western States qualifier race. It was a good race but challenging. My first guide went down about 15 miles into a 30-mile guiding stretch, so I ran about 10 miles by myself. I hadn’t been there before, so I had to slow down. It happens sometimes. Ideally, there’d be a backup guide, or you could find another runner and ask, “Hey, can I run with you?” I did a little bit of that, but I lost a lot of time. Kim was waiting for me at the halfway point to take me the rest of the way. She’s in phenomenal shape, but we were starting to come up closer and closer to the time cutoffs during the last 12 miles. Unfortunately, there were wildfires in the area that we’d been very lucky to avoid since it had rained hard the day before. We could run safely without the smoke, but then it came back at night, and flashlights don’t work as well in thick smoke. It’s like running in a cave.

So, we were trying to run fast to make a cutoff at the end. I could no longer see the edges of the trail, just the trees and her flashlight. We were pushing me hard to make it through while I kept running off the trail. Thankfully, I had trekking poles, so I could catch myself before I went hard off a trail. I don’t think many guides would be able to push that hard while guiding that well, especially under those conditions. We’d never done anything like that before.

I should’ve had brighter lights, but we weren’t thinking this section would be that bad, that late, or all in the dark. Runners who normally do this prepare for the unexpected. I need 2 high-lumen lights to get just enough light under normal conditions. So, what do I need if it’s smoky? What do I need if it’s dusty?

In terms of guide and runner, the Waldo 100K is the performance I’m most proud of. And ultimately, we beat a 17- or 18-hour cutoff by about 14 minutes. It was incredible.

UIS: Looking ahead, do you have any objectives? Maybe a dream run you’d like to do?

Will: Well, the short-term objective is pulling off a wedding in the next few months!

I’m interested in heavier mountain races. The Hard Rock 100 is on my bucket list, which is like a 48-hour cutoff. It’s very, very technical: a lot of off-trail running, and it’s notoriously hard to get into. But that’s on my list.

“Dream race” is a hard one. I have some interest in multiday races, like stage races [A stage race is a multiday competition with multiple individual races, or stages, that are held consecutively]. I’ve always looked at the Infinitus in Vermont’s Green Mountains as an ultimate systems test. They have multiple time limits: a 5-day time limit and a 10-day time limit. It’s a figure eight that’s 27 or 28 miles, and the 10-day goal is 888 kilometers, about 550 miles. You work your systems. It’s about what your mind and stomach can handle. Logistics and systems are what I do well. So, I’m interested in that. And I’d love to do another thru-hike or a major long trail.

Work and life obligations make it tough to take 3 or 4 months off to do a do a big trail. The Continental Divide Trail or Pacific Crest would be big. After you’ve done it once, you think how much better you’d do the next time. And that’s my long-term to do list, time and life permitting.

UIS: Do you ever have any days where you’re tired or out of it and just don’t want to hit the road? What gets you pumped to train on those days?

Will: I mean, sure, I get deterred. I have my bad days, when things aren’t quick when you walk out the door, or you miss a window of good weather, and then you’re running in cold, dark rain. It doesn’t feel safe or productive. And some of it is your judgment, like I don’t need to get this specific run done today. Honestly, the days where I sort of cop out, I just get on the treadmill and do incline training with weights. I just crank that treadmill to 4 miles an hour and max incline and put on a weight vest, or hold weights, or put a pack on my back and see how long I can sustain that pace, which is usually much worse than whatever run I had planned.

There are also days where work is rough, and you don’t feel like running. But running is how I manage stress and frustration. I’m lucky that on those days, I can still run solo to some extent. And, even if it’s with a guide, it’s social. If you have that important run, having the guide is a huge incentive to say, “Well, if I went to the trouble of signing up a guide, I’m going.” If they’re coming out for you, you’ve got to show up.

Some people have asked me, “Do you ever think about quitting during a race?” Sure, I have. But it’s very hard to think about quitting when other people are sacrificing their time and energy to help you pursue your goal. You’d better give it all you have. There’s a whole community of support and accountability if you take the time to build it. Motivation can’t solely come from within, and isolation can contribute to feeling frustrated or exhausted.

For me, running is salvation. It’s freedom from frustration. These days, if you have a good network and ways to get guides, you could ask, “Is anybody free to go up and run with me in the next 45 minutes?” And if you live in a city or college community, those options are easier with less planning.

I’m 40 and regimented, so I don’t do much at very short notice. Taking initiative means you’ve got to be motivated, so you’re never feeling down about running when you hit the road.

Running is the thing you do to feel good, rather than the opposite.

Read More: William Barkan: A Journey Through Vision Loss and 100-Mile Racing

Listen: Will Barkan, the first blind runner to complete the world’s oldest ultramarathon WSER