For as long as I can remember, running has been my escape. I lace up my shoes, hit the trails near Ross, and my mind just goes quiet. I play soccer and run track, and I’ve always loved that I can move at high speed without really having to think about it.
But lately, through my engineering projects at Branson, I’ve realized that this “mindless” movement is actually a massive cognitive privilege. Not everyone gets to turn their brain off when they run.
I recently sat down with Jisselle, a graduate student at SF State, to talk about her experience as a visually impaired runner. What she told me didn’t just give me data for my research—it gave a heartbeat to a concept I’ve been calling the “Stress Wall.”
The Cost of Dependency
Jisselle was born with a rare condition called Peter’s Anomaly and later developed Glaucoma. She has light perception—she can tell if it’s sunny or cloudy—but no functional vision.
When she told me about her first attempt at track in high school, it hit me how fragile the current “system” is. She was entirely dependent on a student guide whose schedule was, in Jisselle’s words, “wonky.” Because her guide was busy with other sports and college apps, Jisselle’s training was on-again, off-again.
“I just got really discouraged,” she told me. “I was like, ‘This is not for me.’” She eventually dropped out. It wasn’t that she couldn’t run; it was that the logistics of dependency were too heavy to carry.
Hitting the Stress Wall
Jisselle eventually found her way back to the sport through amazing groups like Achilles International, but even with a great guide and a tether, the mental toll is real. She described a moment during the Hot Chocolate Run in San Francisco that perfectly illustrates the “Stress Wall.”
The race was incredibly crowded. The mental effort of weaving through thousands of people while listening for constant directions became overwhelming. She tripped—not a full fall, but enough of a stumble to break her confidence. “For the second half of the race, I was so nervous,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m gonna trip again.’”
That nervousness is what I’m studying. It’s the Neural Tax. When you’re running with low vision, your brain is “overheating” trying to process a million variables at 8 miles per hour. When the mental energy required to stay safe exceeds your capacity, you hit the Wall. The joy of the run disappears, replaced by a “survival low.”
The Treadmill Trade-Off
The most eye-opening part of our conversation was when Jisselle talked about her life now. She’s working full-time and living in San Jose, where guides are harder to find. Her solution? The apartment gym.
She runs on a treadmill because it’s the only place she can move whenever she wants. She can pop in earbuds—something she can’t do with a guide—and just go. Think about that: she is choosing a windowless gym over the beauty of Golden Gate Park, simply because the treadmill offers the one thing the outdoors doesn’t: Independence.
Nature’s Blueprint for Autonomy
This is exactly why I’m looking toward biomimetics for a solution. I don’t want to build a device that just bleeps when there’s a curb. I want to build a sensory architecture that feels as intuitive as a natural sense.
Jisselle told me, “I sometimes do crave the need to want to be outdoors and run outdoors and just experience that again.”
That craving is my “North Star.” As I move into Phase II of my research, I’m not just trying to build a gadget. I’m trying to dismantle the Stress Wall so that Jisselle can leave the treadmill behind, step out her front door, and run into the wind—entirely on her own terms.
Jiselle — thank you for your time, your honesty, and your willingness to be part of this.
This post is part of an ongoing research series at runlikeafish.blog exploring biomimetic approaches to assistive technology for visually impaired runners. If you’re a visually impaired runner, a guide, or a researcher working in this space, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at brooke@runlikeafish.blog