GUTS TO GLORY
Asthmatic Walker Completes Portland Marathon

By Sheree G. Kirby

When Steve Gaudet finished his first half marathon in July 2005, he had his doctors scratching their heads — again.
Since his birth, Gaudet, now 51, has lived with severe, persistent asthma. With his history of 82 hospitalizations (more than 20 of these were ICU stays, 12 of which required mechanical ventilation), and the irreversible damage to his lungs (he operates with a baseline function of about 30%), doctors are amazed that he’s still alive, let alone entering races.

In early 2004, when Gaudet’s illness permanently sidelined him from a 27-year career as a respiratory therapist, marathons were not even a blip on his radar. His primary goal was to stay as healthy as possible while building some structure into his days.

“Rather than becoming a couch potato and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to try to lose some of the weight I’d gained from the steroid treatments. I also wanted to see if I could slow the progression of my disease with some sort of self-directed fitness regimen,” he recalls.

He tried biking, running, and jogging, but they all left him breathless within seconds. By default he decided to walk — just a short jaunt every day to see how he felt. “At first, I was lucky to make it a few blocks without suffocating, but eventually those few blocks became a few miles.”

As of this writing, Gaudet has successfully completed three half marathons, the 2005 San Francisco, the US Half, and the Kaiser Permanente Marathon, and his first full marathon, the Portland Marathon. Training to walk 13.2 miles can be a daunting goal for many, let alone 26.2. But for Gaudet, who is short of breath much of the time, training is always a challenge. Every walk he takes requires preparation and vigilance.

“It’s usually a wait-and-see thing,” he says. “Even though I may feel all right when I wake up in the morning, I’m never sure how the day’s walk will affect me. So I always start with a nebulized (vaporized) medication treatment and carry my inhaler. Then I start walking slowly and reassess after the first half-mile. If I feel okay, I may be able to continue walking for several miles without major problems. If not, I stop and crawl home.”

While preparing for his first half marathon, Gaudet worked up to a five mile loop across the Al Zampa Bridge and around the town of Crockett, CA, where he lives. But he did not test himself with longer walks until just four weeks before the event when, almost overnight, he made the jump from five to 10 miles.

“Big mistake!” he recalls, shaking his head. “I walked it, but the following day, I caught a cold and ended up in the hospital for a week.”

As is the case with most severe asthmatics, any insult to the lungs, such as a viral infection, hay fever, or stress, can prompt a serious attack.Because Gaudet’s lungs have lost so much of their elasticity, even a subtle change in weather can land him in the emergency room.

Even so, Gaudet was determined to resume training just three days after being released from the hospital.
“At first I kept asking myself if I was crazy, if the prednisone had gotten to my brain. But I couldn’t forget that I had already walked a ten-miler. All I needed to do was three more measly miles.”

On race day, his confidence grew as he walked the first five miles with relative ease. His spirits plummeted, however, from miles six to 10 when the effort and the seemingly relentless hills of San Francisco had him gasping and wheezing. It wasn’t until the 11th mile when he called his partner, Douglas, and told him, “Meet me at the finish line. I think I’m going to make it!”

Although Gaudet recalls the last two miles feeling more like 20, he was able to finish the event in just over three hours. Today, he entertains thoughts of walking another full marathon, and he recently attended one of Dave McGovern’s racewalking clinics to work on increasing his pace and to learn a more efficient walking technique.

“I’ll never be fast over a long distance,” he says, “but I like the rhythm, the cadence, and the economy of motion. Racewalking is a new challenge.”

One might wonder why someone who is challenged by every breath he takes would continue raising the bar. Gaudet points to improvements over the past 18 months in his overall quality of life, such as increased energy, more restful
sleep, and a new enthusiasm for waking up in the morning.

“I’ll walk for as long as I can,” he says, “because it makes me feel like a normal, healthy person. There are even times, particularly when I’m racewalking, when for 30 seconds or so, everything clicks and I forget about my lungs and my limitations. That’s when I feel like I’ve accomplished something big, and I can’t help but break into a huge smile. If I can get that feeling, it’s a very good day.”

Read more about Gaudet accomplishments at baycitywalker.blogspot.com.