Read on Twitter
Today marks my one (long) year of quitting cigarettes cold turkey. In 3 weeks, it will have been one year since I'd crossed the finish line at the 2020 @lamarathon, the first (and only) marathon I had ever run.
Here's a
on the journey of reclaiming my health:
Here's a
on the journey of reclaiming my health:
1. I tried quitting so many times before this, but so many times it just never stuck. Undoing the associations I had with smoking (for 8+ years...) was extremely difficult (shocking!) since it was something I did before, during or after so many events in my life
2. In August of 2018, with a nudge and support from my partner, I decided I wanted to pick up running. Up until that point, my weekly exercise routine was just climbing up the stairs on the Metro subway stations to and from work every weekday--not much more than that.
3. The first few weeks of running was a rude awakening; my cigarette lungs were not ready for me to start pretending to be athletic for even the short mile or two that I'd force myself to run. There was a lot of run-walk-running involved. It was an embarrassing few weeks.
4. The silver lining in all of this is that the more I committed myself mentally to making sure I ran (and improved at running) at least three times per week, the less I felt drawn to the habit of smoking (or at least smoking as MUCH as I had been).
5. I noticed that by giving myself another goal to work towards that was also difficult, my mind shifted its focus from the difficulty of ending one habit (cigarettes), towards the difficulty of picking up a new habit (running).
6. It became evident enough to me that the cigarettes to which I was addicted were actually hindering my other goal of becoming a healthier person through running. This seems intuitive, even as I write this, but addiction usually quashed intuition. This revelation was huge for me
7. Fast forward to August of 2019: in my first year of picking up running, I had run a 5k, two 10k's and a half marathon. I significantly decreased my smoking to maybe twice a YEAR at this point. It was a step towards liberation from this smoking, but not the end of the journey
8. It was a couple months after that point that I decided I'd try training for the 2020 @lamarathon. It was extremely ambitious, but I wanted to push myself past my comfort zone and really test myself mentally and physically.
"If I can run a half, why not try the full thing?"
"If I can run a half, why not try the full thing?"
9. It was a grueling 20 weeks of training, but I had never been so focused on something in my entire life. Training for the marathon had become non-negotiable for me. Nearly everything else in my life got planned around my running schedule, even vacations. I impressed even myself
10. A year ago, I was in Mexico City on a vacation and I treated myself to a pack of cigarettes and smoked some. It was exactly one year ago today, that I threw the rest of those cigarettes away. I had quit cigarettes cold turkey since that day.
11. Returning from that vacation and having a few weeks before race day, I tapered my training regimen and prepared mentally for the 26.2 miles and on March 8, 2020 I did something I never thought I was capable of doing: I finished running the 2020 @lamarathon!
12. This achievement took place the weekend before the world changed because of COVID--since then, it had felt so strange to celebrate such a personal milestone for myself while the rest of the world was (and still is) grappling with a deadly pandemic, among other things.
13. While acknowledging how privileged I am to have remained healthy throughout this past year, I am so damn proud of myself for trading one extremely bad habit for one a little more conducive to healthy living.
14. I seldom get personal on social media, but this feels important. I share this story not to boast, but rather to share a story of someone who felt hopeless and eventually found hope. Often times, overcoming your addiction will take many tries--but it is NOT impossible.
15. As with many things in my life, I seem to relish learning things the hard way; this past year, I have learned first-hand the lesson that many have tried teaching me through the years:
We can accomplish anything if we set our minds to it. Anything is possible.
We can accomplish anything if we set our minds to it. Anything is possible.
