In Defense of a Hero

Lance Armstrong stepped down as CEO from the Lance Armstrong Foundation and soon after Nike as well as Budweiser ended their relationships with him, with more to come.  I have spent all afternoon watching various tweets centered around his guilt, telling jokes (What is Lance's favorite animal?  A Cheetah) and generally jumping on the "We Hate Lance" bandwagon.  Not me.

I still am a Lance supporter and there are two main reasons why.

I remember watching Lance's first Tour de France and while at the time I knew very little about the sport, I was rooting for this guy, this AMERICAN, who just 3 years after having cancer was winning the grueling 23 day long road race. I cried when he won.  I have always had a bike and can remember as a kid just taking off and riding for hours just to explore. As a "grown up", I realized I missed my bike and started riding again. I wasn't the only one, as road biking suddenly became a topic of conversation and wearing spandex and riding on skinny tires was cool again.

Lance won again the next year and the next year and of course the next year and by then I was riding pretty steadily. I devoured his book "It's Not About The Bike."  I remember thinking that he is an x-man in the real world. His body processes oxygen at a higher rate than most people while producing less lactic acid than most. His spine is shaped in a way that makes him more aerodynamic. He simply is able to tolerate more physical stress than most people.  He also seems like a complete and total asshole.

Yep, you read that correctly.  He is an asshole. But I also think that he had to be to get through what he did and to continuously win like he did. The Tour de France is an incredibly impossible race to even complete. Each year there are multiple wrecks and even deaths. You simply cannot just decide one day to ride the Tour without any preparation. It takes years of training, days of riding in the rain, the cold, the hot and riding when the last thing you want to do is to ride. You have to fine tune your nutrition, focus everything in your life around one goal. I have done one thing like this in my life that is even remotely close and that was run a marathon.  I had to sacrifice parties, time with friends, dinners, ice cream, sleeping in and generally a life.  I hurt, all the time, and spent most weekends on the couch with ice packs on various parts of my body. I did all that for a sub par finish that is not even remotely close to what Lance could do.

I firmly believe that there are people that are naturally athletic and I am not one of those people, but Lance is. He is able to train to a level I never could dream of hitting. But the key piece of that statement is that he trained.  He did the work.  He put in the miles and miles and miles. He made the sacrifices. He prepared his body, his mind and his team for stresses they could never imagine.

I don't think anyone can deny that Lance Armstrong is more than a person, he is a brand. His name is synonymous with the  Livestrong logo that graces the yellow bands, t-shirts, bikes, hats, bags and cycling gear, seen at most races, sporting events and in any large crowd of people.  That brand has raised more than $470 million to support and empower people who are affected by cancer.  The Lance Armstrong Foundation has helped more than 550 organizations and countless thousands of thousands of people who have cancer. More than that, Lance has given HOPE to people who have cancer. He has revolutionized how people look at cancer. Instead of being a victim, Lance inspired people to fight, to take charge, to not surrender to the disease.  Livestrong is an immense resource center for people diagnosed with cancer, but Lance changed the status quo of those people.  Cancer is no longer a death sentence. Lance was able to fight cancer and come back to win the hardest road race in the world because he chose to fight.  He was the first person to say that a person with cancer can live.

Livestrong is about the fight.  It is about learning about the disease and living strong.  It is about acceptance of the fear, the anger, and working through all the emotions that a cancer patient and their support system are about to feel.  It is about living a life and having a life worth living.  Lance Armstrong showed people that you can live after being diagnosed with cancer.  His strength gave others strength.

For me, he will always be the person who got me back on my bike, and for that I thank him. Because of that I have met people that have helped me along in journeys I never knew I would be on.  The person I was 10 years ago has fundamentally changed, due mostly in part to my ability to ride my bike. More importantly, Lance is still the person who changed our society's opinions on cancer.  We fight.  We don't accept less than living.

I don't know the details on the doping scheme, I don't know if he was simply using his own oxygenated blood or steroids. I don't know if he was the only one or if everyone was doing it.  What I do know is it is impossible to finish the Tour de France without putting in the work. I know that he helped many friends of mine learn about their cancer and be better prepared legally, financially and mentally.  I know that in the pros and cons of life, he has done far more for society as a whole than most people can ever dream about. He had cancer. He fought and he won; continues to fight.  He taught all of us that we can also fight and win.  And for me, that is why I will always be a Lance fan.