Thursday, November 09, 2006

I hate running too - but I do it.


I admire Lance Armstrong - really I do.
I'm not going to buy into the controversy over the did he/didn't he do the drugs thing. I'm not even going to dip my toe into the whole Sheryl Crow thing: The truth is he is an amazing athlete.
But even though he has won the Tour de France many times, and has battled cancer to live to tell the tale, the thing I admire most about him, is his strength of conviction.
This week Lance entered, and completed the New York marathon - his first - in less than 3 hours. You might think that for an athlete of his caliber this would be a walk in the park - but reading this interview after, paints an entirely different picture.

...his body seemed to tighten and showed signs of pain and fatigue in the final few miles. He started to fall off the pace required to break 3 hours before a final push allowed him to meet his personal goal.

"Before the race that was my goal, I wanted to break 3 hours. But if you told me with 3 miles to go, `You're going to do 3:05,' I wouldn't have cared," he said. "Honestly, at the end I was so tired, I couldn't care. Now I'm glad I did."

... and So will he be back?

"Now's not the time to ask that question. The answer now is no, I'll never be back. But I reserve the right to change my mind," he said. "I don't know how these guys do it."

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