How I Quit Smoking and Started Running (With Nicotine Gum)

I’m Peter Walsh. I’m 39 years old and I live in Lakewood, Colorado, just west of Denver. I’m an accountant at a firm downtown that handles small business taxes and bookkeeping. I smoked for fifteen years, about a pack a day of Camel Filters. Eleven months ago, I quit using nicotine gum. Six months after that, I ran my first 5K. If you’d told me two years ago that I’d be someone who runs races, I would have laughed until I started coughing. Which I would have, because my lungs were garbage. This is the story of how quitting smoking and starting running happened at the same time, and how one fed the other in ways I didn’t anticipate.

I picked up smoking at 24. I was fresh out of my accounting program at CU Denver, working my first tax season at a firm that doesn’t exist anymore. Tax season is the accountant’s version of hell. January through April, you work sixty, seventy hours a week. You eat takeout at your desk. You stare at spreadsheets until the numbers blur. A senior accountant named Greg took me out for a cigarette break during one of those late nights and I never looked back. The nicotine combined with the stress relief of stepping away from the desk was an immediate addiction. Not a gradual slide. An immediate, this-is-what-I’ve-been-missing addiction.

For fifteen years, smoking and accounting lived side by side in my life. Tax season was the worst. I’d go from a pack a day to almost a pack and a half during crunch time. The rest of the year was steadier, a pack a day, give or take. I smoked Camel Filters because that’s what Greg smoked, and by the time he left the firm years later, the brand was mine.

I was never an athletic person. Not in high school, not in college, not as an adult. I played some recreational basketball in my twenties, but nothing serious. By my mid-thirties, my primary physical activity was walking from my car to the office and back. I was about twenty pounds overweight. My resting heart rate was higher than it should have been. I got winded going up stairs. I accepted all of this as normal because everyone around me was more or less in the same shape. In the accounting world, nobody’s running marathons. Or at least, nobody I knew was.

The catalyst for change came from my girlfriend, Megan. We’d been together for about two years. She’s a physical therapist. Very active. She hikes, she does yoga, she runs. She ran the Bolder Boulder 10K every year and the Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon. She never pushed me to exercise. She was good about that. But she’d come home from a run, flushed and energized and obviously feeling great, and I’d be sitting on the couch with an ashtray on the end table, and the contrast was hard to ignore.

The conversation happened in October 2024. We were on a hike, Megan’s idea, a relatively easy trail in Red Rocks. Easy for her. I was dying. Halfway up the trail, I was bent over with my hands on my knees, gasping. My lungs felt like they were full of wet sand. I was embarrassed. She waited for me, didn’t say anything condescending, but I could see it in her face. She was worried. That night, she said, “Pete, I want us to have a long life together. I need you to take care of yourself.” She wasn’t asking me to quit smoking. She wasn’t asking me to start running. She was asking me to be around. That was enough.

I set my quit date for January 6th, 2025. The Monday after New Year’s. I chose that date for two reasons. First, tax season hadn’t started yet, so my stress levels were at their annual low. Second, it was far enough away from the holidays that I wouldn’t be trying to quit while surrounded by family gatherings and holiday stress. I spent December doing research. Reading about nicotine gum, watching YouTube videos from people who’d used it, reading forums. I also downloaded the Couch to 5K app. The plan was to quit smoking and start a running program simultaneously. Looking back, that sounds insane. But in my mind, they were linked. If I was going to get healthy, I was going to go all in.

I bought a box of Nicorette 4mg, the fruit chill flavor, from King Soopers. Also bought a pair of Brooks running shoes that the guy at the running store in Belmar said were good for beginners with flat feet. I felt like I was preparing for battle. In a way, I was.

January 6th. First day without a cigarette. First day of Couch to 5K. I woke up, chewed a piece of gum, and went for my first workout. Couch to 5K Week 1 is deceptively simple on paper. You alternate between 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for about 20 minutes. I popped a piece of gum before heading out, partly for the nicotine and partly for something to do with my mouth while I was moving.

Denver in January is cold. Low thirties, dry air, patches of ice on the sidewalks. I started jogging and within the first 60-second interval, my lungs were on fire. Not figuratively. It genuinely felt like someone had lit a match inside my chest. My breathing was ragged and shallow. After 60 seconds of the slowest jog imaginable, I switched to walking and was legitimately relieved. The gum was working in my cheek, delivering nicotine, which helped with the craving that the exercise was triggering. Because, and this was something I didn’t anticipate, exercise triggers cigarette cravings. Something about the elevated heart rate and the heavy breathing made my body want nicotine even more.

I finished the workout. It took me about 25 minutes including the warm-up and cool-down walk. I was sweating, I was wheezing, and I felt simultaneously terrible and proud. The gum had been a steady presence throughout, parked in my cheek, releasing nicotine, keeping the worst of the craving at bay. I went inside, sat on the couch, and chewed a fresh piece while my heart rate came down.

The first two weeks of quitting and running simultaneously were brutal. The nicotine withdrawal made me irritable, foggy, and tired. The running made me sore, out of breath, and acutely aware of how damaged my lungs were. The gum was the bridge between the two. It handled the chemical craving so I could focus on the physical challenge of learning to run. Without the gum, I don’t think I could have done both at once. The withdrawal would have made the running impossible, and the running would have amplified the withdrawal until I broke.

But here’s the thing that happened, and this is the part I want other people to know about. By week three, something started to shift. My lungs weren’t better yet, not significantly. But I could feel them trying to be better. The runs were still hard, but I was completing them. I was moving from the 60-second jog intervals to 90-second intervals, per the Couch to 5K schedule. And after each run, I’d feel this rush that wasn’t nicotine. It was endorphins, probably. Or just the satisfaction of having done something hard. Whatever it was, it started to compete with the craving. My brain was learning that there was another way to feel good that didn’t involve a cigarette.

The gum was critical during this period. I was chewing about 12 pieces a day in the first month. I’d have one before runs, one during (parked in my cheek), and one after. The rest were spread throughout the workday and evening. The Fruit Chill flavor became associated with forward motion, with progress. Every piece was a cigarette I didn’t smoke and, increasingly, a run I was preparing for.

Week four of Couch to 5K is when you start jogging for three minutes at a stretch. Three minutes doesn’t sound like much. But for a 38-year-old ex-smoker who’d been sedentary for a decade, three continuous minutes of jogging felt like climbing Everest. The first time I made it through a three-minute interval without stopping, I actually punched the air. I was alone on a trail near Bear Creek Lake Park and I punched the air like I’d won something. Because I had. I’d run for three minutes. My lungs ached but they held. A month earlier, they wouldn’t have.

That was the moment I understood the connection between quitting and running. Each one reinforced the other. Quitting smoking made the running possible. The running gave me a reason not to smoke. Every improvement in my cardiovascular fitness was evidence that quitting was working. And every temptation to smoke was countered by the thought, “If I smoke, tomorrow’s run will be harder.” The two goals were intertwined, and that made both of them stronger.

Megan was incredible during this time. She didn’t try to coach me. She didn’t run with me, which I appreciated because her pace would have destroyed me. She’d just ask how my run went and listen to me talk about it. When I hit week four and told her I’d jogged three minutes straight, she lit up. She understood what that meant for someone who’d been a smoker for fifteen years. She said, “Pete, your body is healing. You can feel it, right?” I could feel it.

By month two, the gum usage was dropping naturally. Down to about 8 pieces a day. The runs were getting longer. Week 5 of Couch to 5K has that infamous day where you jog 20 minutes straight with no walking break. I was terrified of it. I chewed gum before and during the run. I picked a flat route along the Bear Creek trail. I put on a podcast, something long and engaging so I wouldn’t focus on the clock.

I made it. Twenty minutes of continuous jogging at a pace that a real runner would call a shuffle. But I made it. My lungs burned less than they had a month ago. My breathing was labored but controlled. I could take deeper breaths than I’d been able to take in January. The improvement was real and measurable. When I stopped, I bent over and put my hands on my knees, not from exhaustion but from emotion. I was standing on a trail in the Colorado sun, breathing hard but breathing, and I hadn’t smoked in six weeks.

The running community in Denver is incredible, by the way. I joined a beginner running group that meets at Wash Park on Saturday mornings. A mix of all ages, all fitness levels. The group leader, a woman named Andrea, was a former smoker herself. When I told her my story, she nodded and said, “You’re going to be amazed at what your lungs can do once they’re clear.” She was right.

Month three. Gum down to 5 pieces a day. Running three times a week, with the distances getting longer. I could feel my lung capacity expanding. Not in some abstract, imaginary way. In a concrete, measurable way. I could hold conversations while jogging, which would have been impossible two months earlier. My morning cough, which I’d had for years, was fading. I’d wake up and take a deep breath and it wouldn’t catch or rattle.

Month four. Down to 3 pieces of gum. Running up to two miles without stopping. I registered for the Cherry Creek Sneak 5K, a race in Denver in late April. It was six weeks away. I told Megan and she immediately marked it on the calendar. I told my running group and Andrea said, “You’re going to crush it.” I didn’t believe her, but I wanted to.

Month five. Two pieces of gum a day, sometimes one. Running three miles at a stretch. My pace was slow, around a 12-minute mile, but I was covering the distance. My body had changed. Not dramatically, but noticeably. I’d lost about eight pounds. My face was less puffy. My color was better. My resting heart rate had dropped from 82 to 68, according to my Apple Watch.

The 5K was on April 26th, 2025. A Saturday morning. Sunny, about 55 degrees. Perfect Denver spring weather. I chewed a piece of gum beforehand, more out of ritual than need. Megan was there. My buddy Chris from the firm was there. A few people from my running group showed up.

The starting gun went off and I ran. Not fast. Not gracefully. But steadily. The course went through Cherry Creek, along the bike path, and back. Flat and scenic. I passed the one-mile marker and felt fine. Really fine. My breathing was rhythmic and controlled. My lungs felt open. By mile two, I was feeling the effort but not struggling. I thought about all those mornings standing on my back porch smoking and how different this was, how much better this was, how this was the opposite of destroying my body.

I crossed the finish line at 37 minutes and 42 seconds. Not a time that would impress anyone who runs seriously. But I cried. Standing in the finisher’s chute with a medal around my neck and sweat dripping down my face, I cried. Megan hugged me and she was crying too. Six months earlier, I couldn’t jog for 60 seconds. Now I’d just run 3.1 miles without stopping.

I stopped using the gum entirely about a month after the race. I was already down to the occasional piece, and one day I just realized I hadn’t chewed one in three days and hadn’t noticed. The nicotine was out of my system. The cravings were gone. What was left was the running, which had become its own habit, its own reward, its own way of managing stress.

Since then, I’ve run two more 5Ks and I’m training for a 10K. My pace is down to about 10:30 per mile. My lung capacity, according to my last doctor’s visit, is back to near-normal for my age. Dr. Pham said my lungs have made “remarkable recovery,” which is apparently common when you quit smoking before 40. The lungs are resilient. They heal. But they can only heal if you stop hurting them.

I still keep a box of Nicorette in my medicine cabinet. I haven’t opened it in months. It’s there as a safety net, the same way you keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. You hope you never need it, but knowing it’s there gives you peace of mind.

The connection between quitting smoking and starting running was the most powerful combination I could have stumbled into. Each one gave the other meaning and momentum. If you’re thinking about quitting and you’ve never been a runner, I’m not saying you need to start running the same day. But think about adding some physical activity to your quit. Even walking. Even a short walk. Because feeling your body get stronger in the weeks after you quit is the most compelling argument against ever picking up a cigarette again. You can read all the statistics about lung recovery and cancer risk reduction. But feeling it, in your chest, in your legs, in your breath, that’s what makes it real.

I’m Peter Walsh. I’m an accountant who smoked for fifteen years and now runs 5Ks for fun. Nicotine gum got me through the transition. The running gave me something to transition to. Together, they turned me into someone I barely recognize, and I mean that in the best possible way.