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Steve Witt waited in line at the Roanoke Athletic Club to work on his calf raises.

It was the mid-'90s and he didn't consider himself a power lifter at the gym. But he did enjoy testing his limits. He routinely lowered the pin on the weight machine a bunch of notches to remind himself that he could always do more.

One day, he stood behind a trim, athletic woman at the machine. When she finished, he lowered the pin about five notches.

He got on the ball of his foot and pushed up with his leg but his calf muscles wouldn't budge.

"Whoa," he thought. "This is weird. What's happening?"

He raised the weight lever a few notches. Nothing. A few more. Still, no movement. Finally, he took all the weights away. There was no resistance. Just the bar.

He went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neurological disorder that affects the nerves that carry information from and to the spinal cord. Witt's legs and feet could no longer tell his mind what they were feeling.

It's hereditary. His younger brother, David, also has the disease.

It's incurable. About one in every 2,500 people in the United States has it. While not fatal, the condition worsens over time.

The disease hit Witt hard.

When he was young, he was a captain on the football, track and wrestling teams. He won the Group AA wrestling state title at 185 pounds for Andrew Lewis High School in Salem. As an adult, he enjoyed weight lifting, hiking and the outdoors.

But with CMT, he battled a newfound fatigue. He needed braces to walk. The years passed.

A turning point came in 2004 when he traveled to Virginia Beach to watch his wife, Linda, run a 13-mile half-marathon.

"I was there strictly as a spectator," said Witt, who turns 50 on Thursday. "I'm ashamed to say I was feeling sorry for myself."

Eventually, he vowed to join her in the same race the following year.

He got custom-made leg braces that helped him walk better. He began training.

Since he could no longer run, he walked. Forty-five minutes, five days a week.

"I did it whenever I could," Witt said. "Sometimes, it was at lunch, at the mall, after dinner."

Witt travels a lot. He lives in Christiansburg but works in Roanoke during the week as a salesman for Southern Air.

In September 2005, he walked his first half-marathon (3:34:07) at Virginia Beach. In January 2006, he finished his second half-marathon in Arizona (3:25:59).

His third came last September, again in Virginia Beach (3:22:59). Two weeks later, he completed his fourth half-marathon in Philadelphia (3:24:23). Four half-marathons in two years. Not bad, Witt thought.

He soon thought about doing a full marathon, but he initially laughed at the idea.

"Kind of ridiculous, kind of funny," he remembers saying to himself. "Someone with CMT doing a marathon."

He wanted to do "something inspiring, something uplifting, something of the human dignity of somebody, you know, staying in the race, metaphorically, rather than checking out," he said. "Someone that's staying in the race."

He found a race in Arizona, the P.F. Chang Rock and Roll Marathon on Jan. 14. He didn't give it a second thought.

He arrived in Phoenix and began walking without a problem until mile 18. That's when the "mind games" started taking over.

"I was worried," his wife said. "Worried about him."

He thought of quitting the race.

With less than a hundred yards to go, his legs cramped up and he felt as if he couldn't control them anymore. He was losing his balance. He clung to a fence for support.

His wife was on the other side of it and couldn't reach him.

"After that, it's just a ramp onto the stadium and you're at the finish line," she encouraged him through the fence. "You'll make it across if you have to crawl."

A voice inside Witt's head pleaded for help. "I'm just going to take little steps."

He crossed the finish line (7:18:57). He wants to walk another marathon -- this time, in Boston, in 2008.

"Until he finished I wasn't sure if he was going to make it all the way through," his wife said. "I never told him that."