Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests can't breathe...

alright, before I get flamed (not sure if I will, but you never know...), I just want to say I'm here for help, not bashing.

being 18, I've made a few poor decsisions in my lifetime. about a year ago I was finishing up my first and last cross country season (I was a senior, only ran one year), and I could easily run several miles in a row, topping out around...oh say, 13 or 14 in a single run. needless to say, I was in the best shape of my life.

when cross country ended, I was going through a lot of things at home, mostly college-related. to make a long story short, I started smoking pretty regularly (erm...not cigarettes).

I played baseball in the spring, and was still in decent shape, though it had diminished a little bit, I attributed that to the off season. baseball ended, and between work and school I didn't keep up with the exercise. A few days ago, I went for a run. I could barely do a mile...I was so tired I thought I was going to have an asthma attack. It's obvious the reason, my lungs are probably pretty torn up from the smoke. I took this as a wake-up call. I've stopped the smoking, and trying to keep on a regular running schedule, but damn...it's really hard.

here's my question. how permenant is this damage? will I be able to get back into my old cross-country physique and physical shape? will I be able to get close? is it just going to take a lot of hard work and running through the pain? I'm willing to do it, cross country was hard as hell, I think I can take a little bit of running pain to get through this.

I'm not really looking for judgements here...not even really looking for support (though it's always nice), just answers. this really concerns me, I've been "mr. athlete" throughout my entire life, and yea, I realize I made a poor decision, but I've changed that, and I'm looking to get back on track now. thanks in advance

Your body regenerates itself approximately every 7 years. If you stop smoking for 7 years, your lungs will be as good as new.

i ran cross country for 4 years and ive been running all my life. But i have never smoked but i can tell you this. You are going to hurt alot for the first few weeks/months. But after that, if you dont give up you will be back to the original shape. Its just going to take longer. Smoking kills your performance alot. But its nothing you cant recover from. Just go out and run as much as you can, dont matter if it hurts or what. The reason you could only run a mile is because you gave up, seing that you only ran for one year, i can tell you that you could have easily gone for 2 maybe 3 miles. Its just that your just not as mentally strong as you before. Go out and try 2 miles and i guarranty that you can do it.

It all depends on you. I knew people in high school who smoked regularly and still ran cross country, track, and participated in other sports quite successfully. I doubt there's any serious permanent damage to your lungs because of the smoking. If you get back on your exercise routine and start working out like you used to, you should be able to pick up all or most of what you used to have. I was in excellent shape all throughout college. My exercise routine used to be this: run 4.1 miles per day, lift 45 minutes rotating upper and lower every day, and then play a few games of basketball. Getting away from the college routine, work, and other things have gotten me far from that condition; I can barely make the run, and that's all I do. I'm working on it now, and I hope to be back in college-like condition by late spring.

So just keep at it, don't let the prospect of what smoking may have done to your lungs keep you from trying to get back into your previous shape. You'll get there eventually.

Since you're not smoking tobacco cigarettes you're actually much better off. Plain weed (I'll assume) has little to no (depending where you're buying it) additives, and if it does they're not very harmful, so you're not going to have permanent amounts of tar stuck in your lungs like you would from cigarettes.

This will be something you'll be able to bounce back from, probably just as good as before, but it will take a while. Your lungs are screwed up, but not permanently.

Weed may have less carcinogens, still has plenty of tar though.

actually marijuana delivers about twice the amount of tar content to the lungs as tobacco. even more so since filters aren't used.

you should be able to make a full recovery as long as you stay committed to getting back in shape.