Im a quirky 50 something year old dude with extremely severe asthma. I'm also a licensed and registered Respiratory Therapist. 5 years ago I was so short of breath I had to take early retirement.

Rather than feeling sorry for myself and waiting for this disease to kill me, I decided to put into practice what I preached to my rehab patients, and that is...Exercise!!!
With that in mind, I started a self -directed pulmonary rehab program on myself. I was to short of breath to swim or bike, so I took up plain old walking.

At first I couldn't walk a city block without suffocating , but I stuck to it and eventually was walking several miles a day.Despite the concerns and doubts of some, I kept pushing myself to go a little farther each time. A few months later I set my sight on walking a half marathon.

6 months later I did just that. I walked 13.1 miles in just over 3 hours, successfully completing my first half marathon. Then just a little over a year after that on 10-1-2006 , I did what others said was not possible….. I walked 26.2 miles and finished the Portland Marathon

Since then, I’ve gone on to finish a dozen other races, including the Rome marathon in Italy(twice), and on April 20th 2009, I walked my way into the record books by becoming the first person with end stage lung disease , ever to finish the Boston marathon!

On April 19th, 2010 , I did the Boston marathon again, this time to raise awareness about severe asthma and the research that’s going on to find better treatments. I finished the race 14 minutes faster than the previous year.

My message is simple, if I can do these things, anyone can. All you need is the passion and the will power to succeed.

You can read more about me at http://breathinstephen.com