Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Relatively few people can claim they've run a marathon. Even fewer can claim they've run one in Antarctica — and that they won.
Brooke Curran can, though. The 43-year-old mother of three has run marathons on six continents and in 37 states, the most recent being Utah. And she'll up that number to 50 by October 2013, despite a 2009 diagnosis that she thought had ended her running career for good.
Curran ran her first marathon in 2002. By 2009, crossing the finish line for just herself was no longer satisfying, so she started the RunningBrooke foundation to help impoverished children in her hometown of Alexandria, Va.
"The better I got at running, the less it meant to me," she said. "I wanted to find a reason to run. I wanted to leave a legacy in this world, and I think investing in the community is really important."
She decided to invest in children, specifically, because she has three of her own.
"If you give children a chance, but also expect a lot, they live up to that," she said. "If you give children a chance — especially an education — lives are changed. And not only their lives, but the lives of their kids."
Curran built RunningBrooke around the idea of running a marathon on every continent and in every state. Only one month after making the commitment, however, she nearly collapsed during a training session due to the sudden onset of asthma and exercise-induced bronchospasm.
"I was devastated. I thought my running career was over," Curran said of the diagnosis. "I had just committed to 74 marathons. It was a life-changing diagnosis, to be sure. But it was equally life-changing to have an answer."
Exercise-induced bronchospasm is the restriction of the airway during or after exercise. It can be worsened by changes in altitude, temperature and humidity.
She decided asthma and EIB were not enough to keep her from her work, so before every race she grabs her inhaler, warms up and thinks of the children she's affecting every time she laces up her shoes.
"What I'm doing is too important — the story I'm sharing is too important — you could really change the life of a little kid."
The story she is sharing is one of fighting for yourself, as well. Curran said she wants to spread awareness of asthma and EIB: that they are treatable conditions that should not stop one from living.
"Asthma doesn't have to stop you," she said. "I want people to know that it's a treatable disease; it doesn't have to stop them. It doesn't have to get in the way of their dreams."
Curran wants to continue sharing her message even after she leaves her 50th state, but it won't necessarily be through running.
"I don't know what's next," she said. "Maybe ultras or an Ironman. I've always wanted to learn how to jump out of an airplane; maybe that's what I'll do. I want it to be something bigger than myself — something I have to work for."
