Visually impaired runners pair guide dogs, AI glasses for marathon training

Visually impaired runners in London are arriving at marathon training with more than one kind of support at their side: a human guide, a working dog and, now, AI-powered glasses that can talk back.

Tilly Dowler, who has Stargardt disease and says she has about 10% useful vision, only started running last year. She went from a couch-to-5K plan to marathon distance and now trains with her boyfriend running beside her as a guide while she wears Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses. Dowler can ask the glasses for live cues on landmarks and distance, so she hears both the device and the instructions from the person beside her as she builds toward London.

That layered setup matters because the glasses are not replacing the old system of guide runners and dogs. They are adding another channel of information. For Dowler, that means more confidence on the road while keeping a human guide in the loop, stride for stride, through the same long sessions that marathon training demands.

Sha Khan is using the technology in a different way. Khan lost around 90% of his vision in 2021 because of retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt disease. He said the smart glasses have become part of his everyday life and training, while his guide dog, Moby, handles navigation outside of running. The split is telling: the dog remains the trusted mobility partner in daily life, while the glasses add another layer of independence when Khan wants to stay active.

The shift points to where access is heading right now. Smart glasses have moved into mainstream consumer space, with Meta Ray-Bans and Oakleys among the best-known models, and that has opened up new ways to combine audio cues, camera-based interpretation and real-world movement. Privacy concerns still hang over devices that can record and interpret the world around them, but for runners like Dowler and Khan, the immediate value is practical: more ways to keep moving without giving up the support network that makes running possible.

For the guide dog world, the story lands in familiar territory. The dog is still central, the human guide still matters and the new tech is not a replacement. It is one more tool in the kit for athletes trying to train hard, race hard and keep their independence on the streets of London.