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In about 198 days, Lance Armstrong is planning on running in the NYC Marathon on November 5. We bet he didn't have to wait for a lottery ticket! Armstrong told the AP, "I've been training some, but I wouldn't call it serious. It's just something to fill a void in my life after I quit competing as a professional cyclist." Not serious for Armstrong would probably mean a 2 hour 30 minute marathon! But really, Lance probably thought, "Diddy did it, so can I."
Here's the NYC Marathon website. Did you know that Rudy Giuliani named August 2, 2001 Lance Armstrong Day? Will Lance wear an aerodynamic helmet? Or an all-yellow, fresh-off-the presses state-of-the-art Nike running uniform? And Lance, unlike the onlookers during the Tour de France, the only thing we New Yorkers throw to the runners is love and encouragement.
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god[speed] to Lance!
Let's hope for his sake the marathon is not drug tested.
drug tested?, i doubt that would matter since he's never failed one
it's easy to do it with one ball – let him trying carrying around the weight of TWO and then we'll see what kind of athlete he is!!
this guy is fucking amazing – i don't think he's human.
doper.
I wouldn't be surprised if Armstrong didn't finish. Nothing against the man's talents, but running is a whole different sport from cycling. A study many years ago showed that competitive cyclists could ride at a very high level day after day, as in the Tour de France. But the effects of heel strike on the body meant that marathon runners were wiped out the next day, even though they were expending only the same level of effort as the cyclists.
He started as a triathlete. I'm pretty sure he'll do fine.
Jen has a point, if Diddy can do it, it won't be a problem for Armstrong.
brightliner, what the study you cite means is that cyclists can easily injure themselves in running training, or easily overdo it in the marathon and be really really messed up for days afterwards. But it doesn't suggest to me that they're any more likely to actually drop out of any particular run or running race.
I ride bikes a lot and run very little (a handful of times a year, all in the course of a month), and it's trivial for me to just go out and run, say 5 miles). But I get wicked sore. With a few months of preparation a marathon wouldn't be a problem. Doubt I could walk the next day though.
His ex-wife was featured in an article for some women's mag about how she completed a marathon. The angle of the article was that after the divorce, she was devastated and depressed, but she said that training and completing a marathon helped her out of her depression.
I've always felt that his ex-wife got a bum deal.
Lance ran a 18:20 5K earlier this month, which would translate to about a sub-3 hour marathon. I imagine with training he'd be 2:30-2:45 range or so.
Brightliner's got a point. I can bike without emabarrassing myself but I can't run to save my life. But knowing Lance he'll wicked-ass train and probably do just fine.
He was the 1989 U.S. National Sprint Triathalon Champion. He'll hold his own in the marathon.
Or he'll shoot himself up with some cocktail prior to the race.
There's no denying that he used enhancement drugs, ALL cyclists did.
"ALL cyclists" use drugs? All? No.
I would imagine he would, um, train before running 26 miles, so I bet he'll avoid any injuries come race day.
Anyway, I doubt he's doing it to win. And switching from one endurance sport to another makes a whole lot more sense than Michael Jordan switching from basketball to baseball.
jt,
Actually, that study was comparing competitive cyclists against competitive marathon runners, not cyclists taking on a different sport. Ask any runner who does a marathon if he'd like to do another one the next day. The level of exertion is comparable in the Tour de France, especially the mountain stages, but the lack of impact means those racers can get out and ride the next stage the very next day.
this guy survived testicular cancer and extremely painful and experimental chemotherapy. the dude dropped like 40 pounds through the ordeal. started training at an early age as an outlet from bad domestic environment. HUGE lung capacity and a heart that is easily 30% larger than an average, fit adult...just a genetic freak. The entire nation of France just rooting him on to fail.
add it all up and it's pretty easy to see he whooped everyone's ass on very rare physical talent (not his doing) and INTENSE training (his doing). doping? i don't believe it for a second.
give credit where credit is due. is it so hard for you to accept that once in a while, someone extraordinary comes along that can just mentally and physically blow everyone away?
Because of his lack of nuttage, doesn’t he have to take testosterone shots to stay ‘balanced’?
And isn’t that somewhat of a performance enhancer?
I never believed his lame denial and indignation over being accused of using enhancement drugs during his Tour wins. Professional cycling is probably the sport where drugs are most widely abused, and the regulatory body is usually years behind in testing the cyclists for the most advance of the enhancement drugs. All this talk about his large heart and lung capacity are a load of crap. Even Greg LeMond, a fellow American and Tour winner, have hinted that Armstrong had to have used drugs.
My point is that Armstrong took drugs, but I am sure all his competitors also took drugs, and I guess we can still say he's the best
While Brightliner's got a point about the difference in exertion on the body in running as opposed to cycling (running just beats the body up much more) I'm sure Lance will do fine. He was a former triathlete, a maniacal trainer, and has the heart literally the size of a bowling ball.
Brightliner, is Armstrong planning on doing a long run or a running race the day before the NYC marathon? Or going running the day after the marathon?
If he's not, why do you keep bringing up the fact that it's harder to recover from running to run the next day? And why does that fact make it unlikely that Armstrong will finish a one-day running event? You do know running the NYC marathon will only take a few hours, don't you?
Vin, I'm not denying the drug use is widespread in pro cycling, but your statement that it is "probably the sport in which drugs are most widely abused" is absurd. There are professional sports where there is almost no drug testing and the sanctions for failing a test are minimal. And the athletes have become freakish at a professional level (and even freakish at good college/amateur levels). Professional football is an example.
We should be careful with the word "exertion" when comparing marathon running to bike racing.
For sure, high-level marathon running is very hard, and very destructive to the body. It's almost impossible to run a marathon two days in a row, whereas top bike racers routinely race many days in a row. Good marathon runners take months to get back to top-level after a hard race. So in that respect, marathon racing is "harder."
But exertion means the level of effort put out, and that's surely can be much higher in a hard pro bike race. Think about it -- a top marathon runner is going very hard for a little over 2 hours. In a pro bike race, it can be four or even seven hours, at equally high heart rates and levels of effort.
Runners simply can't do that -- they can't eat and drink enough to put out that kind of intensity for so long, and the impact of running means they can't put out that same effort for that long either. So yeah, running is "harder" in one sense, but not in another.
Marathon running is more comparable to mountain bike racing where its sustained exertion for hours. In a road bike race, you're not at a high level of exertion for most of the race (unless you're on a breakaway from early on).
Guys, everything is about pacing. Some people can run consecutive marathons. Some people even run 100 miles in a day. It's all about pacing (and having great body mechanics). You go easier for 100 miles than you would for 26.2 miles. That said, the Tour de France is one of the most grueling endurance events there is. It's as dangerous as it is relentless.
To clarify, your high heartrate on the bike is about 10 beats lower than running, because you are using less of your body. I imagine this is as true for Lance as it is for me, though he is is special. His lactate threshold is incredibly high, and his dominance in cycling is virtually unmatched by other athletes of our era in other sports.
No, Lance won't "win" the NYC marathon. I doubt he's capable at this point of a sub 2:30 marathon. He probably won't win his age group either. But he probably will qualify for Boston, and he'll be in great shape when he decides to do Kona, which he might very well win.
I wonder if Lance has been swimming at all. (He started his career as a swimmer.)