Stories from the Book – The Lance Armstrong Story

What Happens When We Don’t Heal

If you don’t do the hard work of healing, you are destined to make the same mistakes again.  If not the same mistakes, you’ll make different kinds of mistakes.  Let me illustrate.  Lance Armstrong may be the best cyclist who has ever lived.  A record seven victories in the Tour de France and an amazing third in his 2009 comeback year make Armstrong a remarkable athlete.  His recovery from cancer was even more remarkable.  Given a 20 percent chance of survival, Armstrong displayed an amazing will to live.  Yet, despite his cycling record and the inspirational nature of his comeback from cancer, I’m not sure that he has really learnt anything.  Despite his commitment to raising money for cancer research, I’m even less sure that Armstrong has matured as a man.

Brought up by a single mother, it was always Lance and his thrice-married mum against the world.  What Armstrong refers to as “the old wounds and long-ago slights” was channelled into an intense competitive energy, a self-righteous anger that stirred him to achieve beyond the levels of mere mortals.  Given his father’s absence and then, for a few years, the presence in his home of a temperamental stepfather, Armstrong became the husband-substitute for his mother.  He earned money for the family, demonstated dependability, and gave her emotional support.  Always the non-conformist, Armstrong’s world consisted primarily of his mother and long, isolated training rides into the surrounding countryside outside his home in Plano, a suburb of Dallas.

We can learn a lot from Lance Armstrong.  Always in a hurry, he learnt the patience required to win road cycling races.  Armstrong simply refused to be out-trained by anyone else.  He embraced the pain of agonising, oxygen-starved mountain climbs, just as he embraced the pain of his cancer diagnosis.   His level of self-belief has long been astounding.  When the cancer spread to his brain, Armstrong’s response was clear.  “I’m ready to crush this thing,” he said.  Following a six-hour operation on his brain, he briefly felt gratitude for having survived before an overwhelming wave of anger swept over him.

            You know what?  I like it like this.  I like the odds stacked against me.  They always have been, and I don’t know any other way.  It’s such bullshit, but it’s just one more   thing I’m going to overcome.  This is the only way I want it.[i] 

 Armstrong was dropped by his cycling team, Cofidis, and he showed them what a mistake they’d made.  He rode through worries that his cancer would relapse, ghost pains in his chest, and the scepticism of cycling commentators that he’d never come back.  When his riding legs refused to return and sponsors deserted him during 1998, he actually quit and decided to retire.  With encouragement from his mother and new wife Kristin, he gave it one last chance.  As his fitness and form returned, he made sports history.

 But here’s the rub, the bitter taste in the mouth.  First, Armstrong claimed that his victory over cancer was of greater significance than any of his Tour victories.  His 2009 comeback belies this statement.  Rather, Armstrong has such a high need for achievement that he can’t help himself.  His identity is deeply embedded in his cycling victories.  It is about the bike.  Second, Lance Armstrong has written that his ability to overcome cancer made him a better husband and father.  Tell that to Kristin, from whom he divorced in 2003, as well as the son and two daughters who came from this partnership.  Is this the same Lance Armstrong who wrote,

             Since the illness I just care a lot less if people like me or not.  I still care a little, but with the birth of my son, it’s diminished even more.  My wife likes me, and I hope my son will like me.  It’s their good opinion that I desire now.[ii]

 To cite a word that Armstrong uses himself, that’s just so much bullshit.  He had to be a hero.  He had to be the dutiful husband that his mother never had.  That’s not psycho-babble.  That’s reality.  By all means be inspired by Lance Armstrong’s victory over cancer and his unmatched record on the bike.  Don’t be taken by his life as a man, however, since his life also reveals the downsides of an obsessive-compulsive personality, an unhealthy level of ego, and a commitment to winning over all else.  Don’t become an angry man or woman in the Armstrong mould.  Instead, recognise that true healing includes healing our darker sides, normally driven by a glitch in our personalities or by the wounds we’ve carried from other times in our lives. 

 Lance Armstrong is an amazing guy.  He is an incredible achiever.  His success at fundraising for cancer research is breathtaking.

 Be strong, though, not Arm-strong.

[ii] Armstrong, p.288.