Otto Price Quit Smoking Cold Turkey at 27 While Training for a Marathon
Otto Price Quit Smoking Cold Turkey at 27 While Training for a Marathon
I know what people think when a twenty-seven-year-old says he quit smoking. They think: five years, thatâs nothing. Try thirty. Try forty. You donât know what real addiction is.
Maybe theyâre right. Iâm not going to compare my five years to someone elseâs thirty. But Iâll tell you this: at my worst, I was smoking a pack a day and I couldnât imagine going twelve hours without one. The length of the addiction doesnât change the grip of it. Nicotine doesnât check your ID and decide how hard to hold on.
My nameâs Otto Price. I live in Minneapolis. Iâm twenty-seven. I quit cold turkey sixteen months ago and trained for a marathon while doing it. It nearly broke me, and it saved me.
The Smoking Years
I started smoking at twenty-one. Legal age and everything, nice and responsible. I was a junior at the University of Minnesota, studying business, and I picked it up the way a lot of college kids do: at parties, at bars, in that gray zone between social smoking and actual smoking where you tell yourself you can stop whenever you want.
I smoked Marlboro Golds. âLights,â as everyone still calls them even though theyâre not supposed to use that word anymore. At first it was weekends only. Then it was weekends and stressful days. Then it was every day but only a few. Then it was half a pack. Then it was a pack.
By the time I graduated and started working as a marketing analyst for a tech company downtown, I was fully hooked. I smoked on my walk to the office. I smoked on breaks. I smoked on my walk home. I smoked after dinner, before bed, and first thing in the morning. That morning cigarette with coffee was the one I loved most and hated most. Loved it because it felt like the day didnât start without it. Hated it because needing a cigarette before you can function at 7 AM is a pretty clear sign youâre not in control.
I was also a runner. Thatâs the absurd part. In college I ran cross-country, not at a competitive level but recreationally. I did 5Ks, a few 10Ks. I loved running. And I started smoking while I was still running. For the first year or so I convinced myself it wasnât affecting my performance. Then my times started slipping. Then I started getting winded on runs that used to be easy. Then I stopped running altogether because it wasnât fun anymore when every mile felt like breathing through a straw.
So I traded running for smoking. Thatâs a trade nobody should make, and I made it without even noticing.
Two Tries
My first quit attempt was in 2023, about two years in. My girlfriend at the time, Abby, was training for a half marathon and she kept asking me to run with her. I couldnât keep up. Not even close. Sheâd run six miles easy and Iâd be dying after two. I told her Iâd quit so I could run again.
I went cold turkey and lasted six days. The cravings were constant. Not just urges but a physical discomfort, like my skin was too tight and the only thing that would fix it was nicotine. On day six I was at a work happy hour at a brewpub in Northeast and someone on the patio had a pack on the table and I asked for one. That was it. I was back within the hour.
Second attempt was about eight months later. I bought a box of Nicorette mini lozenges. They tasted chalky and gave me hiccups, but they did take the edge off the cravings. The problem was I used them as a supplement, not a replacement. Iâd pop a lozenge and then smoke a cigarette an hour later. I wasnât quitting. I was just adding another nicotine delivery system to my day. After three weeks I stopped buying the lozenges and kept the cigarettes.
After that, I settled into a resigned acceptance. I was a smoker. This was my thing now. Iâd deal with the consequences later.
The Wake-Up
November 2024. I went to my buddy Tylerâs apartment to watch the Vikings game. Tyler doesnât smoke. Never has. His place is clean, no ashtrays, no smell. I stepped out to his balcony three times during the game to smoke, and each time I came back in heâd open a window without saying anything. Not passive-aggressive, just automatic. Like he was used to airing me out.
After the game, while I was putting on my jacket, Tyler said something that stuck. He said, âYou know, you used to be the fastest guy on our intramural team. Remember that?â He wasnât trying to guilt me. He was just reminiscing. But I went home and couldnât stop thinking about it.
I used to be fast. I used to run and it felt like flying. Now I couldnât run a mile without my lungs burning and my heart rate spiking. I was twenty-six years old and I had the cardiovascular fitness of someone twice my age.
That same week I saw a poster at the gym for the Twin Cities Marathon in October 2025. Full marathon, 26.2 miles. The registration deadline was months away. I stared at that poster for a long time. Something clicked. Not a lightning bolt, not a voice from above. Just a quiet, firm thought: I can either keep smoking or I can run a marathon. I canât do both. Pick one.
I picked the marathon.
Cold Turkey, Day One
I set my quit date for January 6, 2025. A Monday. I smoked my last cigarette Sunday night, crushed the pack, threw it away. I also threw away the ashtray on my balcony, the lighters in my junk drawer, and the emergency pack I kept in my carâs glove box. All of it, gone.
Day one wasnât the worst. I was running on determination. Adrenaline, almost. I downloaded a marathon training plan for beginners. Twenty weeks to race day. I went for a short run that first evening, just two miles on the treadmill at my gym. My lungs burned. My pace was embarrassing. But I did it, and when I got off the treadmill I was too tired to think about smoking.
Thatâs the secret nobody told me about exercise and quitting: when your body is exhausted, the cravings get quieter. Not gone, but quieter. Your brain is too busy recovering to scream for nicotine.
The Ugly Middle
Days three through ten were a war. I donât want to dress this up. I was a nightmare to be around. I snapped at coworkers. I couldnât sit still in meetings. I had this persistent brain fog where thoughts felt like they were coming through water. My appetite went haywire. I ate an entire box of Cheez-Its in one sitting on day four, standing at my kitchen counter at midnight.
The physical symptoms were real and specific. Headaches every afternoon around 3 PM, right when Iâd normally step outside for my break-time cigarette. My mouth felt wrong, like it was missing something. I started chewing cinnamon toothpicks compulsively. I went through a 200-count box in the first two weeks.
Running saved me during this stretch. I forced myself to run every other day, even when it felt awful. My training plan called for short runs in the early weeks, three to four miles. I couldnât do four. I could barely do two. But I kept showing up. Each run was proof that my lungs were working, that air was moving, that my body was doing something besides craving a cigarette.
By week three, I noticed a difference. My breathing on runs was slightly easier. Not a huge change, but measurable. I could finish two miles without stopping, and my pace had improved by about thirty seconds per mile. That was the first concrete evidence that quitting was changing something.
The Hardest Moment
Week six. Super Bowl Sunday. I went to a party at a friendâs apartment. Big group. A lot of them smoked. When halftime hit, about eight people filed out to the balcony to light up. The smell hit me like a truck. Not unpleasant. Thatâs the cruel part. To a recent quitter, that smell is like an ex youâre still attracted to.
Someone offered me one. I said no. They offered again, casual, friendly, not pushy. Just a âyou sure, man?â I said no again, went inside, went to the bathroom, and stood there with my hands on the sink staring at myself in the mirror. My heart was racing. My palms were sweating. The craving was so intense it was almost a sound, this high-pitched whine in my head that said: just one. Just one and youâll feel normal again.
I texted Tyler. He texted back: âRemember the poster.â Three words. That was enough. I splashed water on my face, went back out, ate a plate of wings, and watched the rest of the game. I didnât smoke.
Building the Miles
As winter turned to spring and the training plan ramped up, running became the anchor of my quit. Every additional mile I could run was proof that smoking was losing its hold. In February I couldnât run three miles without walking. By April I was doing seven-mile long runs on Saturday mornings along the Midtown Greenway. By June I cracked ten miles for the first time. By August I did a sixteen-miler around the Chain of Lakes.
My lungs transformed. Thereâs no other word for it. The capacity came back in stages. First the burning at the start of runs went away. Then the coughing after runs stopped. Then my breathing during hard efforts got smoother, more controlled. I could take deep breaths that actually filled my chest instead of hitting a ceiling.
I was also sleeping better than I had in years. I didnât realize how much smoking had disrupted my sleep until I stopped. I was falling asleep faster, sleeping deeper, waking up actually rested. That alone was worth quitting for.
Race Day
October 5, 2025. The Twin Cities Marathon. I lined up with 8,000 other runners at the start line near the Metrodome. Nine months and twenty-nine days since my last cigarette. My goal was just to finish. I didnât care about time.
Miles one through thirteen felt strong. Iâd trained for this. My breathing was steady. My legs felt good. The crowd along Summit Avenue was loud and it carried me.
Miles fourteen through twenty got hard. My legs started to ache. My pace dropped. But my lungs held. That was the thing. My legs were suffering because thatâs what happens in a marathon, but my breathing was fine. My lungs, the same lungs that couldnât handle a two-mile jog ten months earlier, were doing their job.
Miles twenty through twenty-six were survival. I wonât sugarcoat it. I walked twice. My quads were screaming. But I kept moving, and I crossed the finish line on the capitol mall in four hours and thirty-eight minutes.
I sat on the curb afterward with a foil blanket around my shoulders and a banana in my hand, and I cried. Not dramatically. Just tears running down my face while I ate a banana. Iâd run 26.2 miles without stopping to catch my breath once. A year earlier I couldnât run a mile.
Sixteen Months Later
I havenât smoked since January 6, 2025. Iâm training for my second marathon now. My resting heart rate is 58. My lung capacity, measured at a checkup last month, is normal for my age. Normal. After five years of smoking a pack a day.
Iâve saved about $4,400. Pack-a-day at roughly nine bucks in Minneapolis. I spent some of it on new running shoes and race entry fees. Better investment.
I donât get cravings much anymore. Maybe once a month, usually when Iâm stressed about work or out at a bar. They pass in under a minute now. Barely a blip.
To Anyone in Their Twenties Who Smokes
People will tell you itâs easier to quit when youâre young. Theyâre right, technically. Your body recovers faster. The habit hasnât been wired in for decades. But easier doesnât mean easy. Itâs still hard. And the fact that youâre young can work against you, because you can convince yourself thereâs always time. Youâll quit later. Youâll deal with it when youâre thirty, or forty, or when something bad happens.
Donât wait for something bad to happen. Donât wait for a health scare or a wake-up call. Pick something you want to move toward, not just something youâre running from. For me it was literally running. For you it might be something else entirely. But find the thing thatâs incompatible with smoking, the thing that makes you choose, and then choose.
Youâre not alone. I know it feels like youâre the only young person struggling with this, like itâs an old personâs problem. Itâs not. There are plenty of us. And we all felt the same way you do right now.
My nameâs Otto. Twenty-seven. Five years of smoking. Sixteen months clean. One marathon in the books and another on the way. If I can outrun this thing, you can too.