ONE OF the biggest secrets of the fitness world has nothing to do with supplements, steroids or spandex. It is the almost implausible combination of exercise and smoking.There are people, it seems, who do both. We’re not talking about mall walkers who light up once a week. These are men and women who compete in marathons and triathlons and go hiking and train at the gym — who also have a pretty steady cigarette habit.

In a recent online poll sponsored by Runner’s World magazine, 2% of the 2,500 people who responded said they smoked, unbeknownst to their running friends. About 4% said they smoked but that their running buddies were in the know.

Bart Yasso has seen his share of smokers in the more than 1,000 races he’s completed. The chief running officer of Runner’s World magazine and author of “My Life on the Run” says some runners light up before and after races. He even has a few friends who run and smoke.

“They’re very secretive about it,” he says. “They don’t want anyone to know, and I know they’re not proud of it. These are people you never would have guessed were smokers. I encourage them to quit. It’s that addictive element — I understand where they’re coming from.” Yasso was once a smoker himself, but quit years ago when he started running.

Smoking has something of a place in the world of endurance sports. The Pikes Peak Marathon in Colorado began as a challenge in 1956 from a nonsmoking doctor, Arne Suominen, to any smokers who thought they could beat him to the top of the peak and back down. A nonsmoker won, and the three smokers who ran never finished the race.

A smoker did beat Suominen to the top, but decided to smoke a cigarette instead of heading back.

The smokers profiled here are divided on how they ultimately see their habit, with some defiant and others wrestling with how and when they should try to quit. But for now, smoking and exercise continue to run in sync.

[LAT]

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Interesting article on the smoking ban in pubs…Basically it argues that with smoking banned from pubs, a foul odor still remains….that of stinky people.

Now that the cigarette smoke has cleared, thanks to the ban that went into effect in January, bar goers are sniffing some bad odors.

“When it’s emptier, [a bar] smells like stale beer, spilled alcohol, frat house,” said Brittany Allan, 21, a student living in Gold Coast.

While taking a break from work downtown, Rahim Slaise, 32, recalled smelling scents of “overbearing cologne, a musk and body odor” at clubs recently.

Using odor-gauging equipment called a Nasal Ranger field olfactometer, smell expert Dr. Alan Hirsch identified 46 different odors at a Gold Coast bar in May for a study sponsored by Axe, maker of body sprays. The top odor contributors were a musty/earthy/moldy smell that tends to come from wood, a urine-like scent, a sour/acid/vinegar odor that could come from residual alcohol, and of course the odors of sweat and beer.

“The bar is a three times more intense smell than the McCormick Place men’s room, or 15 times more or 16 times more intense odor than a coffee shop, and was almost twice as smelly as an animal shelter,” said Hirsch, founder of Chicago’s Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, citing odor intensity levels.

While secondhand smoke is hazardous to our health, the smoke hid some of the stink.

“You could think of the smoke being background noise and the music playing and you turn it off and all of the sudden other noises in the bar would pop up,” said Dr. Robert Kern, professor and chairman of the department of otolaryngology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Indeed, smoking bans are having some unintended consequences, said Avery Gilbert, author of “What the Nose Knows.”

Smoke masked other scents in bars and restaurants. Without that smoke, you’re left with odors of “fry vat if it’s a tavern place, hamburgers if there’s a grill.

And you’re getting exposed to all these other things: body odor, perspirants, and deodorants and body sprays like Axe and smelly clothes,” said Gilbert, who was not involved with the Axe study. “If you’re in a club dancing and sweating up a storm, and if you’re there long enough, your clothes will smell a bit.”

To get rid of bad odors, bars should maximize ventilation or even inject a scent into the air, said Hirsch, the smell expert. “You could place an aroma at a bar that people like. They will perceive the environment to be more friendly, be happy at the bar and meet more people at the bar,” he said.

At least one local bar is doing just that.

The Crimson Lounge at the Hotel Sax downtown developed a signature scent even before the smoking ban called suha, a fusion of pomegranate, cinnamon, nutmeg, patchouli, sandalwood, cypress, cedar and vanilla.

Dispensed through a programmed and timed device, the scent was created to evoke the dark yet cozy lounge feel, said Adam Kaplan, hotel marketing director. “We wanted to create an experience that we’re an upscale, musically driven lounge,” he said. Still, many bar hoppers in Chicago say they’d take bad odors over smoke.

“When you go home, you don’t smell like all those things at the club,” said Slaise, a business analyst who lives in South Shore. “They don’t retain on the clothing like smoke does.”

(Source)

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Here are some old Camel ads. It is amazing what ciggies could do for you back then!

The last two are my favorite!

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Ok, I am a smoker (trying to quit, though) and I do believe in a healthy enviroment…blah..blah.. But take a look at this….

From Spiked.com:

Thursday 22 May 2008

A cruel and unusual ban

The smoking ban in psychiatric institutions means their patients are the only people in Britain forbidden from smoking ‘in their own homes’.
Ken McLaughlin

This week in the UK, High Court judges ruled that psychiatric patients detained in high-security hospitals have no ‘right to smoke’ (1). The case was brought by three patients at Rampton Hospital, who argued that a ban on smoking was an attack on their human rights. They lost, and now the new ruling will cover Rampton and England’s two other high-security hospitals, Ashworth and Broadmoor. It is also likely to apply to the many other regional ‘secure units’ scattered around the country.

That even psychiatric patients, some of whom are locked up for years, will be denied the small pleasure of having a fag shows how petty and cruel the anti-smoking crusade can be.

The appeal by the three Rampton patients followed the introduction of the ban on smoking in ‘enclosed public spaces’, which came into force in England on 1 July 2007. That ban was an affront to freedom and choice, no doubt, but at least most smokers could continue to light up in the privacy of their home or by popping outside of an ‘enclosed public space’, whether it be on the street outside their workplace or outside a pub or restaurant.

Yet this is not so simple for many people whose home doubles up as a ‘public space’ – for example, people who live in residential homes or psychiatric institutions. Often they do not have the freedom to go outside for a cigarette, and because people work where they live – in their recreational areas, kitchens, bedrooms – they cannot smoke ‘at home’ either (2).

It was in recognition of these complexities that the New Labour government gave psychiatric institutions until July 2008 to come up with some form of secure outdoor smoking area for psychiatric patients. However, Rampton has already implemented a smoking ban, which means that patients can no longer smoke anywhere in the hospital. And it now looks like other institutions will follow suit.

Staff at Rampton, Broadmoor and Ashworth frequently stress that these places are hospitals, not prisons. This is rather unfortunate for the patients who live there and who enjoy smoking – where prisoners are still allowed to smoke in their cells, hospital patients are not allowed to smoke in their beds. This week’s High Court ruling means that psychiatric patients are virtually the only group of people in the country who are not allowed to smoke in the ‘privacy of their home’. As Neil Rafferty of the pro-smoking group Forest said: ‘I think it is cruel to impose what is a petty bureaucratic decision in this way. The hospital should be able to provide a facility for these people to have a cigarette.’ (3)

Detained patients have one other major disadvantage over ordinary prisoners – they do not have a release or discharge date. It is up to psychiatrists, tribunals or the Home Office to decide when they should be let out. Many who live in Britain’s Special Hospitals will never be discharged back into the community; others will remain within the confines of the hospital for several years, if not decades. As such, it seems reasonable to allow them to have a smoke – after all, it’s hardly going to ruin their lives.

Yet according to Lord Justice Pill in the High Court this week: ‘Both health and security considerations justify the ban.’ (4) In fact, neither of these considerations is as clear cut as the judge makes out. Of course, nobody doubts that smoking is bad for smokers’ physical health. But many of these patients are given, often against their will, high doses of psychiatric medication which can have severe side effects. Some of them may see smoking as relatively harmless in comparison to their drugs, and also as a pastime that alleviates boredom and encourages sociability. Meeting in a designated space to share a cigarette is a way of talking to and getting to know others.

It is true, of course, that many (though certainly not all) of the patients in Special Hospitals are extremely disturbed and dangerous individuals who will have committed serious offences, including manslaughter, rape, arson and assault. So the judge is right that security needs to be taken seriously in these establishments. However, the clue is in their names – they are High Security Hospitals or Regional Secure Units. Such places are surrounded by walls and the security within them is extremely tight. On the few occasions I visited Ashworth between 1995 and 2001, I was not allowed to go anywhere on my own, searches were common, and the security procedures were rigorous.

In short, security has always been a major issue in these hospitals. So to argue that the smoking ban is justified due to possible ‘security difficulties’ is absurd. Yes, there may be occasions when certain individuals or groups are not allowed to congregate together due to security concerns, but to replace day-to-day risk assessment by hospital staff with a total ban on smoking anywhere in psychiatric institutions suggests that the ban is being used to institutionalise risk aversion.

Many used to refer to the old lunatic asylums as ‘the bins’. Their rise was viewed by some, not as a consequence of medical advance, but as an institutional solution to social problems; they became places to dump those who were not wanted by the rest of society (the incarceration of unmarried mothers was the clearest example of this). Today, exaggerated claims from health campaigners on the dangers of passive smoking have been mixed with a broader risk-averse outlook, and once again it is to the detriment of those confined in long-stay mental institutions. At least the inmates of the old asylums could have a cigarette; now they cannot even enjoy that small mercy.

Ken McLaughlin is a senior lecturer in social work at Manchester Metropolitan University, England. His book Social Work, Politics and Society: From Radicalism to Orthodoxy is published on 1 July by Policy Press.

What do you think?

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