A word about smoking

Don't. Seriously.

I haven't had a cigarette in a week. I'm not craving one, and the habitual part, where I reach for a cigarette pack when I leave the subway, for example, is disappearing, too. No withdrawal.

But, madre de dios, do I feel like crap.

Problem with quitting smoking -- yes, I've done it before; lasted six years once -- is that you don't feel better immediately. You feel worse. Much, much worse. I don't know the scientific details, and I don't want to. I just want to stop coughing up what I'm coughing up. I want the feeling like someone is sitting on my chest to go away.

This, if history can be my guide, will last another five weeks. I should be turning the corner just about when my 12-week training program starts.

Last time I quit, I was commiserating by phone with Matt Friedman, a fellow ex-smoker and advocate of carrot sticks for treating the condition. "That feeling in your chest?" he told me. "That's cilia growing back. That's healing." (Matt rides cyclocross races now, so he can't be the sanest person I know.)