Remember my Boston marathon jacket from 2009?

Well, with the high cost of anything related to the Boston marathon(especially merchandise), and with the fewer dollars I have available to spend on this years race swag, I decided to get creative.

Rather than buying the official 2010 Boston jacket (which btw, is not as nice as the 2009 jacket), I just had the year “2010″ embroidered on last years jacket. I might have them embroider “114th” on it as well to make it look even better. Either way, I think it looks just as good as having a new jacket. Gives you kind of the ” Veteran” look.

I can’t take credit for this idea. Last year I saw several Boston repeaters who did the same thing. I remember seeing one guy who had 10 dates added to his 1999 jacket. Let’s face it, it gets expensive to shell out a $100 for an official jacket every year. Then again, how many people actually do the Boston marathon more than once? Surprisingly….. quite a few.

People really covet these jackets. They’re kind of a status symbol that says ” Look at me, I made it to “Boston” . You should see how many people are wearing these jackets at Logan airport, the weekend of the race. It’s kind of a badge of honor. People will walk up to you out of the blue and give you that special nod. It’s really cool.

OK, I’m not total cheapskate, I did fork out $25.00 for this 2010 hat ( gotta have the hat).

Wait a minute…….. what the heck happened to weeks 1-7?

Well, weeks 1 and 2, (January 1st-8th) I was in the hospital(on a ventilator). Week 3, I was too wiped out from said hospitalization to do any exercise. Week 4, I actually managed to pull off a 10 mile walk. Weeks 5&6 , (January 27th- February 4th) I was in the hospital again. Week 7, I was still recovering that hospitalization. Which brings us to week #8.

Week #8 ( Feb 13th) I did a 17.7 km ( appx 11 miles) training walk. This is the longest walk Ive done since my half marathon race back in October. I was able to get a couple shorter walks in earlier in the week, but it’s a huge leap going from 4 miles to 11 miles! Considering I’d only been out of the hospital for 9 days, I think this first long walk was a success. I did experience some pretty nasty abdominal cramps, but that was totally my fault. The combination of prednisone, energy gels, too much sweating and not hydrating properly, was just too much for my system and well……let’s just say, thank god there was an open restroom out there in the middle of nowhere.
I completed the walk in 2:55 min ( 16min/mile pace), which is just about right for an LSD walk. My lungs fared much better than I thought they would. During that walk I only used my inhaler about 6 times. I started wheezing a little at the end, but it quickly reversed after a couple of neb treatments. I kept the racewalking to a minimum, not so much because of my breathing, but most because my legs were sore from being bed bound a week earlier and I just couldn’t get a good rhythm going .

This was the same day the Maverick Surfing competition was going on (about 25 miles south), but even here in San Francisco, the waves were crashing pretty high near Golden Gate.

Week #9Trying to play catch up with my training, while also trying to dodge the bad weather has been a real challenge. So, on Feb 17th, just 5 days after doing the 11 mile walk, I did a 23km (14.5 mile) walk. I know it’s crazy to do two long walks back to back like that, but I really needed to get another long walk in before the next rain storm hit the region. In just a 7 day period, I clocked something like 38 miles. Way too much, but I had to take advantage of the dry days when they came. Needless to say, I’m pretty sore from last weeks walks. My lung are paying for it too, as I haven’t quite healed after spending half a month in the slammer. I pre and post medicated with neb treatments and used the inhaler about 8 times during this walk. At the time , I was only on 15mg of pred, vs 30 mg during the previous walk.

Week#10 Starts this Saturday with a series of really long walks LSD walks, which I refer to as my “REALLY LONG WALKS”. They are the 16, 18 and 20 mile( 32km) walks, and are the most important training walks in building the endurance and fortitude required to complete a full marathon. These long walks are basically mini-marathons in themselves, complete with all the not-so-pleasant after effects you can expect when doing a real marathon i.e. muscle cramps, blisters on blisters, joint and body aches, dehydration side effects and in my case, potentially severe respiratory problems.

In addition to the long endurance walks, Ive also been doing three 5 mile tempo walks per week. With most of those I try to incorporate at least a little racewalking.

Ah…. the crazy things we put our bodies through in the name of fun!

OK, I never actually said I wasn’t going to do Boston. What I said, is that a victory seemed unlikely. By victory of course, I meant finishing the race in the allotted time. Well, I may not finish the race, but that doesn’t mean I can’t start it. So ready or not, on April 19th, I’ll be taking my place at the starting line in Hopkinton Massachusetts for the 114 th running ( or in my case, walking) of the Boston Marathon. Heck, I get psyched just seeing my name on the entry list ( Stephen Gaudet)

Because Ive had so many lung delays and hospital stays (oh..that rhymes) in the last 3 months, I now have less than 8 weeks in total to train and prepare for this race, making this the most ambitious fitness goal Ive ever set for myself. I’m just hoping that the severe asthma flare-ups will leave me alone long enough so I can get some serious training in.

I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. I know that due to my declining lung function over the last year, that my chances of finishing this race are slim, but this is something I really need to do , while I’m at least still partially able to. I’m not going to push myself to the brink of death like I did last year. I will walk hard, long and give it my best, but if the work of breathing gets to be too much, I’ll withdraw from the race. If I don’t finish the race it won’t be the end of the world (because Ive already done it once), but if I don’t at least attempt it, I think I would regret it for the rest for my life. So,with health permitting, from now until April 10th, I will be in full time training mode for the Boston marathon.

For some self inspiration, here I am ( in the blue shirt) at the 21 mile mark( 33.7 km) at last years race. The crowds on the course have thinned out dramatically (and not only because we’re at the back of the pack). What a lot of people forget, is that out of 25,000 people who started the race, more that 3000 people didn’t finish it ! (and 99.9% of those people were healthy I’m sure). Many of them became causalities of Heartbreak hill 3 miles behind me. So don’t it over until the fat asthmatic lady says it is

It’s now or never –I’ve got some serious walking to do.

If all goes well, I’ll be kicking off my Boston marathon training this Saturday with a 10 mile bridge to bridge walk in San Francisco. For the next 12 weeks (lungs permitting), I will be walking my ass off, and in the process will rack up close to 300 miles. From this point on, I will need to focus a 100% of my attention on my training , so I’ll probably be blogging less frequently. I will however, post a weekly update of my progress.

I’ll be following the training template below. Because I’m already a month behind, I’ll be entering at the 3rd week of the schedule and finishing on the 16th. To cram this much this training into such a short period, will definitely be a challenge.

(click to enlarge)

As with previous training sessions, I’ll be doing most of my lsds (long slow distance) walks, in San Francisco along the waterfront and Golden Gate Bridge, and my shorter 3-5 mile tempo walks, in Crockett, California on the Al Zampa Bridge.

So you might be asking , why is all this training and preparation so important for someone who is only walking a marathon vs running one? Well, 26 miles…. is 26 miles, whether you run it, walk it, or crawl it. It’s not like you’re given a week to complete the race. If that were the case, anyone could do a marathon. I have 7 hours to cross the finish line at the Boston marathon, which equals a pace of about 16 min/mile. If you’re not quite sure how fast that this, just imagine walking at a brisk pace, non-stop, for 7 + hours. I assure you it’s not easy, even for people who prepare for it. The average body is not build to withstand the stress of trekking 42 thousand meters without a break. No matter how healthy you are, you need to train for these kinds of races.
Then there’s this little problem I have with my lungs. My lung function is less than 50% to begin with, and on top of that, I have very severe asthma. Put all these things together and you can see why training for a marathon is such a big deal for me.

Ive only been out of the hospital for 2 weeks now, and because my shortness of breath and exercise tolerance have worsened this past year, until I know how my body is going to react to some of these upcoming training walks, I can’t really say with certainty, if I’ll be up to the task of completing, what would be my 7th marathon and last marathon.

Preparing for an event like the Boston marathon also requires a huge commitment of time, money and sweat. For this reason, I’m not going to make a final decision about my participation in the race until Jan 30th. Here’s hoping for a green light.

So after each bad asthma exacerbation or flare-up, I feel compelled to write something about the recovery phase that follows. You would think that after going through this process more than a hundred times, that I would get use to it. You learn to deal with it a little better, but you never get used to it.
Better in some ways, and worse in others, the anatomy of this recovery is pretty typical. So far, this is how it’s been going……

Dyspnea : As with most of my post hospital recovery periods, days 5 and 6 have been the hardest to deal with in terms of being short of breath. I was breathing well for the first couple days after being discharged from the hospital, but then my dyspnea levels gradually crept back up again. Yesterday it was unbearable. A mixture of bronchospasm ,air-trapping, stomach bloating and humid weather, I felt like I was suffocating . I’m not sure what today will bring, but I hope things turn around soon as I’m starting to get to really tired of this.

Steroid Withdrawals : This time around they’ve been fairly mild. No major psychosis, just some mild muscle cramps, acne and mood swings. The main reason Ive been spared this time, is because my maximum dose in the hospital was only 60 mg per day. In previous hospitalizations, Ive been on as high as 300-500 mg per day, which can lead to weeks of intense withdrawals and even the potential to re-exacerbate. I have to thank Dr Wenzel for this one. She’s been pretty much able to prove, that high doses of steroids don’t do much for someone with my type of asthma. Currently on my taper, I’m down to 30mg.

Opiate Withdrawals: Next to the bouts of severe breathlessness, the worst problem Ive had to deal with this time, are opiate withdrawal symptoms. While I was in the hospital, I received a lot of IV narcotics for my dyspnea. And because I was on a ventilator this time, I received even more than I normally do. I was getting them almost every hour for the first 4 days and then about every 2-3 hours for the last 3 days. That figures out to more than 100 doses of intravenous Dilaudid and/or Fentanyl. That’s a lot of opiates to put in your body in just a 7 day period. And since I don’t take any of these more potent morphine-like drugs outside of the hospital, stopping them abruptly ( ie cold turkey), always causes me some pretty nasty withdrawal symptoms. Insomnia, nonstop chills/rigors, restless leg syndrome and muscle cramps, just to name a few. The symptoms gradually fade, but the first week can really be a bear.

Body Trauma and weakness: Laying in a hospital bed for a week, working really hard to get a breath, getting jabbed with needles and pumped with drugs and having a tube shoved in my wind pipe (and one in another place), has been pretty traumatic to this old body. I’m starting to feel all the aches from all the IV bruises and Im still weak as hell. You should see the welts left on my belly left from the Lovenox injections.

Looking forward to better days: No matter how bleak the situation seems during the first week of a rough recovery, I always try to focus on better days ahead. Consider this if you will; Yesterday, I could barely walk from my bedroom to the living room without getting totally winded, a distance of less than 10 meters. In just 13 weeks from now, I will attempt to walk 42 THOUSAND meters, at the Boston marathon. That means that between now and April, my endurance will have to increase 4000 fold! The way I feel right now, it seems an impossibility. Give me another week, and my outlook will probably be totally different.

Doing something special for myself: Finally, and maybe this is the selfish part of me, but if survive this exacerbation ,I plan to treat myself to a few goodies. This time, a haircut, a new pair of racing comps (shoes), and a ticket to Barry’s new show over at the Paris Las Vegas. Ok, so I’m a little spoiled.

It’s official, I’m going to Boston…AGAIN!