Happy Chaz Davis Day! Boston honors Grafton runner as Marathon nears

Chaz Davis was already having a good day.

How could he not? The Grafton native is running the Boston Marathon on Monday and is considered a top contender in the brand new Para Athletics division, where he is leading the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired’s (MABVI)Team With a Vision. He has a weekend filled with events celebrating runners with visual impairments, many of whom he’s worked with as a MABVI adjustment counselor.

What could possibly make things better? The City of Boston declared Wednesday, October 6, 2021 to be Chaz Davis Day, celebrating his accomplishments both on and off the track.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” Davis said.

As a distance runner at Grafton High School, Davis was routinely at the front of the pack, and he continued running at the University of Hartford. That’s when he started losing his vision, eventually diagnosed as Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy.

When he found out it was still possible to compete, Davis jumped on the treadmill and got back in training. His endurance hadn’t changed, even while running with a guide giving audible cues or with a physical tether.

In 2016, Davis won a spot on Team USA’s track and field team for the Rio Paralympics. He finished 8th in the 5000m and tenth in the 1500m in the 2016 Rio games. In 2018, Davis ran the 122nd Boston Marathon where he finished fifth among 15 notable 2018 Boston Marathon finishers with a time of 2:56:22, running as a member of Team With A Vision.

Monday’s Boston Marathon is the first major marathon to offer prize money and awards for athletes with vision, lower-limb, and upper-limb impairments. The group of 40 will set off in Hopkinton about 10 minutes before the full pack of runners line up at the start line.

Davis comes into the race as the holder of the T12 American marathon record for visually impaired athletes, 2:31:48. His competition? Paralympic marathon silver medalist and current world record holder Misato Michishita of Japan.

Davis, along with the other vision-impaired athletes, will be running on a tether attached to a guide. He actually requires two guides, switching off at the mid-point of the Marathon.

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