Teacher-runner sees role clearly

Swampscott Middle School math teacher Jess Kochman is running the Boston Marathon this year to benefit the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Kochman, who will run a marathon for the first time, has a direct understanding of the importance of eye research.That’s because her running partner, Harvard Law School student Kristin Fleschner, is blind. Fleschner lost her vision about three years ago. Kochman has helped Fleschner train for multiple marathons, including Boston. That relationship, in turn, has helped Kochman transition from someone who had never run before into a marathoner herself. Fleschner goes to Harvard Law with Kochman’s boyfriend Eric Rice. Last September, Fleschner asked Rice if Kochman could help her train for the Indiana Monument Marathon by doing long runs together.”It seemed like a cool opportunity,” Kochman said. “She ended up qualifying for Boston.” And, Kochman added, “She told me (that if she was) doing a lot of runs with me, I might as well run Boston.”Fleschner will run with a professional guide on Patriots Day, but Kochman will run with them.”Having never run a marathon before, I knew the only way I could do so was run for a charity team, and what better team to try and get on than Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary, where Kristin had received countless eye treatments,” Kochman noted.Kochman said that Fleschner is the first visually-impaired person she has ever run with. The two runners run side-by-side, training with a 4-to-5-foot rope around each of their wrists.”When we run together, we’re just like your typical runners, except that our chatter also includes a lot (of) ’10 seconds until we take a left’ or ‘step up, curb’ or ‘be careful, coming up on an icy patch,'” Kochman said.Kochman also said, “She’s a little bit faster than I am. Sometimes I yell at her to slow down, she’s going to be dragging me as a guide and that’s not good.” However, she said, they are “close enough to the same pace that we make it work.”Each of them wears a sign on training runs: “blind runner, give us extra space” and “guide, give us extra space.””We get a lot of funny looks and sometimes offensive comments, but most of all we get a lot of encouragement and positive feedback,” Kochman said.She added that the winter weather has challenged their training, which began almost three months ago.”It’s been incredibly challenging,” she said, adding that the weather has “been our biggest obstacle (with) the paths not being clear, ice, one bad fall we took. The roads aren’t plowed wide enough. We have to run next to each other, and for cars to pass, it’s been really hard.”They run on Saturdays and Sundays. Their training included the Rock ‘n Roll Half-Marathon in Washington, DC. They actually included 6.5 more miles to their run to make their mileage equal 20.”We’ve run for four hours consecutively already,” Kochman said. “That doesn’t concern me. We’re training very hard. I think I’ll be well-prepared. It’s very nerve-wracking.”Kochman took to running, ironically, during a breakup with Rice during the summer of 2012.”I had a lot of energy and anger, and needed a release,” she recalled, describing running as “the one thing that made me feel better.”She and Rice got back together that September, and she continued her running since then.”Two miles quickly turned into four, and four to seven, and then when two of my college roommates wanted to run a half-marathon to celebrate our 30th birthdays I decided to give it a try,” she said, adding that she now has completed five half-marathons.She has a family connection to Boston. Her mother, Judi, is a three-time finisher.Jess Kochman was at the Marathon last year, although she left before two bombs exploded near the finish line, killing three people and injuring over 260.”It means a lot to be running it after that horrible incident occurred, and to be raising money for a hospital that really helped some of the victims, absolutely,” Kochman said. “I think we’re both a little bit nervous. (Flesch