From Smoker to Triathlete

Congratulations!

Well ... years later and I still hock and blow out what training partners have called "unbelievable" amounts of goo ...

Just seems like part of the deal. It got much better after my BF taught me how to blow snot rockets. Before then ... well ... never mind.

I believe I was doing something wrong or right, I'm not sure which.

I smoked a pack a day for about 22-ish years and just quit about a month ago. I've been running and biking for coming up on a year after a 9 year couch potato stint. I've been seriously working out for about two months now.

I only coughed for about a week and now there's not even any wheezy sounds during the deep breathing exercises, that's all gone already. Dunno. Might very well be an individual thing.

I'm 2+ years from smoking ANYTHING and I still cough up the occasional lunger.....Good for you for quitting - keep training!

I'm coming up on my 2-year non-smoking anniversary (will celebrate with a tri race that day). I smoked for 12 years, about 1/2 pack/day. I quit cold-turkey and never coughed up much at all (maybe it's all still stuck in there?) but felt better overall in a couple of weeks and then noticed how my breathing got easier and easier by the day.

Congratulations on quiting! There are quite a few threads here on BT about our former addiction and about how people have dealt with cravings. You'll have them for the rest of your life, you just learn to live with them better every day.

Everyone is a little bit different, and if you've quit multiple times, each time is a little different.

After a couple of months, the bad coughing and phlegm should subside.  There are a few sites that say after 6 months your lungs will be pretty well healed, others say longer.  You going through detox from a pretty potent addiction - your body is going to do weird things, just be strong.