When she was 16, Rose Sarkany was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that causes a loss of peripheral vision. Since then, her sight has faded to about five degrees of peripheral vision (compared to about 170 degrees for most people).
Despite her vision loss, Sarkany, who lives in Port Alberni, B.C., runs a lot, and while she used to require a guide, she can now run solo thanks to a navigation app called RunGo.
Unlike other fitness apps that just track runs, RunGo’s voice navigation system guides users through every turn. Sarkany has enough vision that she can see any obstacles in her way on the road or trails, but she says it takes a lot of concentration, and RunGo helps her a lot.
“It does enables me to run as if I don’t have any vision issues,” she says, “which is a great feeling.”
When she was 40, Sarkany took up running to improve her fitness. “I was a lot heavier than I am now, so I decided to run,” she says. “Running was something that I thought would be easy to do. Was I ever wrong.”
Even though the sport wasn’t as easy as she expected, she stuck with it, and since then she has run 14 marathons, 12 of which were guided. Her first guided marathon was the Boston Marathon, and it was with her then-running partner and now-husband, Chris.
“There were a few of us in our training group who had qualified for Boston,” she says. “They noticed I wasn’t making plans to race there. It would have been too difficult for me to navigate on my own, so I wasn’t going to run.”
Without a second thought, Chris offered to help Sarkany out.
“Chris sacrificed his time to run with me,” she says. “He would have run around a 3:45, but my time was over four hours.” Sarkany explains that Chris had experience guiding athletes, so they made a perfect match, and they’ve stayed teamed up ever since.
In 2011, they entered the Vancouver Marathon together. At the expo the day before the race, they saw a man with a dog and started to chat with him.
The man was Craig Slagel, the founder of RunGo, and he told Sarkany about his app. She liked the sound of it, so she decided to give it a try for herself. Since then, Sarkany has used RunGo for many races, and she uses it for most of her training runs around Port Alberni.
One of Sarkany’s best experiences with RunGo came at a 10K trail race. She downloaded the route to the app and started the run on her own. With RunGo’s voice navigation and haptic alerts (vibrations from her Apple Watch to signal that a turn is coming), Sarkany says even though the route was on unfamiliar terrain, she was confident throughout the entire race.
“It was one of the best runs I’ve ever done,” she says. “It was as if I had no vision issues. It was seamless, everything was in sync. I ran with a smile on my face and I beat my projected time.”
Sarkany says she doesn’t race too much any more, and her last big marathon was in 2014 in Victoria. Sometimes she participates in small local runs, but for the most part, she says she just likes to run for the joy it brings her.
Along with RunGo, Sarkany runs with her guide dog, Dudley, who is her “run partner at the moment.” With RunGo on her wrist and in her ears and Dudley by her side, she can go for runs without any worries that she might make a mistake or get lost along the way.
She adds that the app “isn’t just for people with vision issues, but pretty much for anyone who gets lost easily. Sarkany says she relies on the app, and she notes that technology is becoming “more of a necessity rather than just an option” for many people.
From the Developer:
Use RunGo to take your run planning and tracking to the next level.
Create your own, or search the largest collection of voice-guided routes across 171 countries, including thousands of verified routes like races, city tours, and unique adventures. Turn any route in an engaging, voice-guided tour.
RunGo is the most popular running app featuring turn-by-turn voice navigation. Build your own route, or select one of the 400,000 routes worldwide, and follow a voice-guided tour, including every time there’s a turn or a cool landmark, or an encouraging reminder that you’re halfway there.
It’s 2020: you’re probably beyond trying to memorize every turn, printing out maps, checking your phone’s map every block, or never doing anything new!
You’ll find amazing runs in running cities such as San Francisco, LA, Boston, New York, Chicago, Austin, Vancouver, London, Sydney, Tokyo, and many more. RunGo also tracks your run stats like time, pace, distance, elevation, and estimated finish time.
We proudly include no ads in the app, and a paid premium upgrade is available for additional features.
Featured by Apple to “Run New Routes Wherever You Are,” “Walk to Get Fit,” “Run Your First 5K,” and “Unleash the Power of Apple Watch.”
NEW: SIMULATE RACES IN VIRTUAL MODE
Run famous races and bucket list routes from your treadmill, with voice-guided messages as you imagine running the course. Or run outdoors, and simulate running a course across the world.
NEW: CHALLENGE YOURSELF WITH VIRTUAL RACES
Virtual races keep us motivated all year round. Follow courses peppered with custom voice messages as you run, including stories about landmarks and neighbourhoods, motivational points, and race highlights. Submit in-app to the race’s leaderboard for accurate results.
WHEN YOU TRAVEL
Running is the best way to explore a city when you travel! With routes around the world, curated by passionate locals showing off the best of their city and by RunGo’s hotel partners, you can enjoy your run at your own pace with voice navigation to keep you on track.
WHY VOICE NAVIGATION?
Voice navigation allows you to follow complex routes effortlessly. Explore routes with clear voice directions as you approach each turn, and get notified when you go off route. RunGo is Accessible and supports VoiceOver for visually impaired users.
BUILD YOUR OWN ROUTES
Map out custom routes right on your iPhone, or import a GPX file to RunGo. Any routes you create on the web route creator will also appear on your iPhone.
LIVE TRACKING
RunGo Live lets friends and family track your runs and races in real time on any web browser.
APPLE WATCH
With RunGo’s Apple Watch app, get turn-by-turn directions and haptic notifications on your wrist, and run complex routes without needing your iPhone.
RunGo uses HealthKit to access Heart Rate data when using the Apple Watch and to record workout data to the Health app.
