I remember very vividly a few years ago one of my buddies brothers standing at the end of a dock before a half here in NC, with his wetsuit, cap and goggles (on his forehead) on, standing at the end of a dock smoking a cigarette before jumping in and finishing the race in 5 hour and half hours or so.

As a matter of fact after the race while everyone is drinking free water and eating slices of pizza he was sitting on a picnic table smoking away.

To this day, one of the most impressive athletic things I've seen

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When all is said and done. More is usually said than done
Ba Ba Booey

I'll never forget the 2015 IMC. During the climb back to whistler there was a racer stopped on the side of the rode smoking weed from a pipe.

Based on where they were (no idea how they ended up) they were probably top of the middle as far as positioning in the race.

I'm guessing quite a few. And it's legal in many places. Why?

I'm not even sure what the rules are in triathlon. Is weed banned? In cycling it is banned in competition only.

Years ago I worked around the corner from a center for the performing arts. Ballerinas smoking cigarettes in the alley out back was a constant reminder that nicotine is a powerful stimulant and a very effective appetite suppressant.

Quite the thread revival.

Not a triathlon story but masters swimming. Was at a championship meet, 30yo dude seeded #1 100 breast, two heats ahead of his he's out the natatorium door dragging a cig. Like wth? He said always, calms him down. Goes out 5m later 59.xx rocked it. We all met up at a bar after the meet, guy was a human chimney.

I sometimes do, what about you?



As per WADA rules, it is banned only in competition. Meaning you can use it as a recovery aid.

Absolutely the best way to go to sleep!

Without generalizing, there seems to be a bit more evidence of smoking in triathlon out this way (Koreans and Japanese people).

IM Korea there were plenty smoking before the start, and I'm pretty sure there was some smoking going on in Special Needs. Indeed, Special Needs is a whole other world over here - it honestly resembled a picnic, with small groups sitting around munching on their sandwiches.

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My race site: https://racesandplaces.wixsite.com/racesandplaces

As long as they have crayons to eat, marines can do anything


The blue ones taste best.

When I quit smoking 20 years ago I remember I switched to one cog smaller (must have been 2 teeth less) without training more. It appears that CO takes property of part of the hemoglobine for a couple of weeks. So stop smoking a day before sports does not help.

I know many people who use tobacco heating system instead of regular smoking. Though I still don’t get it anyway. I read that this is less harmful at https://heatnburn.com/. As for me, smoking cannot be completely harmless. Moreover, cases of deseases caused by vapes began to appear in the news and they are really frightening me.

I did quite frequently then had to stop for about 40 days to pass a drug test for a new hire job. During that 40 days I swear it felt like swimming got easier. Once I took the test I resumed where I left off. Now I am working on going from joints to just edibles and wax. I figure the edibles have no effect on lungs and I have to believe the wax is a lot better then a joint as it is supposedly only vapor and you only need a few hits rather then an entire joint that burns the paper and flower to ash.

At some point I want to run a sub 3 marathon to BQ (really have to be sub 2:55), and I always wonder if it would be easier to hold a 6:40 mile pace if I didn't have this habit. Still think its better then alcohol every night.

There was a link on here or letsrun to an article where they talked about the performance enhancing benefit of weed. They had some interesting ideas, but I didn't examine the validity of the study they did.

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The first time man split the atom was when the atom tried to hold Jens Voigt's wheel, but cracked.

I was a heavy smoker when I started running, about 5 or 6 years ago. I finally quit 3 years ago, although I had a relapse through the Spring and Summer (lot of stress, travel, and work issues led to a moment of weakness).

To be honest, and I have no illusion about how unhealthy it is, I really haven't noticed much difference in endurance sports. As long as I stay in an aerobic zone, smoking or not, I perform about the same.

That said, if I go anaerobic, the smoking absolutely kills me, and I have zero ability to maintain any kind of sprint or hard effort for very long while I smoke.

Don't plan on taking it up again, but it used to surprise people that I could get a podium spot at a 5k or 10k, and be smoking a cigarette when they called my name.

My LBS shop has this in their showroom...LOL

Acc to a good friend of mine who knew lots of swimmers at the U of TN back in the mid-90s, Jeremy Linn was a chain smoker but won the silver in the 100 BR at the '96 Oly. Of course, he might have won the gold w/o the smokes. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Seems inconceivable but man I drink too much...

Seems like an odd combo for sure but I wouldn't be surprised if there's more overlap here than what initially seems intuitive. "Exercise addiction" is a real thing in medicine/physiology/psychology and has similar addictive properties to drugs like nicotine.