Took my bike in to the LBS here. The owner/mechanic/sole employee proceeds to change my cables while puffing away on a cigarette. This guy is a multiple Ironman finisher and very fit. Just wondered if this is an abberation, or if any other triathletes smoke too.
I was once asked if I smoked after sex, I said I don’t know I never looked.
I have an old picture of the Tour where all the cyclists are on the side of the rode taking a smoking break.
Chris
There are closet smokers out there. Some folks are casual smokers. Long term hardcore packaday smoking causes problems for people. However, casual smoking is no more dangerous than eating a monster burrito.
I know a few girls who ran D-1 track in college competitively and smoked quite a bit. I don’t think pack a day or anything but when drinking, etc.
I used to smoke casually, over 2 years ago now. I couldn’t mix the two. I think it just affects different people differently. Strange.
A little Mary J…but I didn’t inhale.
Life expec. is 2 years more in France than the US which actually proves that smoking is less harmful than eating junk 
“which actually proves that smoking is less harmful than eating junk :-”
Aren’t you the guy with the yellow band fetish?
I know a guy that did IM a few years ago and he was a smoker, actually a closet smoker who thought know one knew he smoked, but of course we all did! EW!!
I smoke 1 or 2 cigars a week. I don’t inhale, but they’re very relaxing. It’s great fun to spark one up after you win a race.
One cigar a night. Keeps me from over eating and great with brews, salsa and chips.
At lastyear’s DECA IM in Honolulu one of the Euro women athletes regularly smoked on the 10 x marathon leg of the course.
Her and her hubby were quite a couple - he got tagged “ERIC the VIKING” pranzing around the camp in a speedo with a vodka in hand and picking fights with other supporters.
Take the hottest woman on earth…have her purr my name in desire…put a smoke in her mouth…I am gone. Never even tried…I am such a chicken shit.
I used to smoke 2 packs a day. Now, I’m the only person in my immediate family that doesn’t smoke and I’m the only health nut, too. I still have a smoke, maybe one or two a year. It used to be a much more frequent but casual thing, but I have had one, maybe two cigarettes since I started triathlon training 9 months ago. It’s hard to kick the habit forever. I’ve gone years without a cigarette and I still crave them. They. Are. Evil.
you win 1 or 2 races a week?
Same here…too much of a health nut
.
I quit recently after 27 years of 1 pack a day. I was a pack a day smoker when I finished IM Wisconsin in 2003. This past weekend I finished IM Coeur d’Alene six minutes slower but in a much healthier condition.
To be honest, I never felt that smoking was a detriment to my training. But, I don’t compete at a high level anyway. Though, quitting thoroughly messed up my heart rate zones for a few months.
-jeff
Hey record maybe if you did smoke you’d speed up your metabolism and drop some weight and make it through the bike course at the tinman and wouldn’t find it such a terrible race.
eric.
go read “the easyway to stop smoking” by alan carr. you will NEVER crave another cigarette EVER AGAIN. i used to be hardcore, up to 3 packs a day, for 17 years. cold turkey with help from the above and never have wanted another smoke. that was three years ago.
I smoked 2-3 packs a day for 20 years. Quit cold turkey 8 years ago when my wife was pregnant with our first kid, didn’t want her to see daddy sucking butt. Now I might smoke 1 or 2 cigars a year.