LanceRunFinish
An Exclusive Chat with Lance Armstrong—The Triathlete
Lance shares his thoughts on training, tri, and this year's race in Kona
Posted on October 2, 2011 by Jay Prasuhn
http://Livestrong.com
Between his first triathlon at age 16 and last weekend’s XTERRA USA Championships which took place just a few days after his 40th birthday, Austinite Lance Armstrong captured seven Tour de France titles, survived a bout with cancer and launched a global cancer awareness campaign in the Livestrong Foundation.
The day before the race, LAVA senior editor Jay Prasuhn had a chance to sit down with Armstrong and his longtime friend (and trusted aid, former pro triathlete and multisport coach/Ironman head official Jimmy Riccitello). It was probably the first time in decades where phrases like “peloton,” “RadioShack,” and “malliot jaune” were nary uttered in an interview.
What’d we talk about? His comeback to triathlon, the greater balance in his life after road racing retirement, triathlon’s frustrating little nuances, finding training time on the road, his twitter buddy Juan, his thoughts on making a start in Kona, and his picks for this year’s race in Kona. Sit back and enjoy this exclusive chat with Lance.
LAVA: So, you must be getting butterflies with this triathlon comeback.
Armstrong: (laughs) I’m more nervous than I thought I’d be.
LAVA: You’ve obviously been increasingly on the scene, especially at the pool, training with (Austin pro triathlete) James Bonney, and finding pools during your travels. How’s the reception been among triathletes finding you in their lane at morning masters?
Armstrong: People have been great. I try to find a pool wherever I go. It’s what I enjoy doing a lot right now, and when I’m on the road and have an hour, I can bang out a pretty good workout, versus the bike which takes hours.
It surprises people. They don’t expect me to jump into the pool. Then they put you at the back! I just went to lane 1 and went to the back. Sometimes I’ll end up catching guys and they’re like ‘you wanna go around?’ But yeah, everybody’s been very friendly.
LAVA: Having any flashbacks to your teen days?
Armstrong: Yeah, but this is of course very different than those days. The sport’s different. It’s been so long for me, I’ve forgotten a lot. Which is why this guy’s around (pointing at Riccitello), so I can ask questions, all the little questions that I don’t know. But I think we got it all simplified and ready to go.
LAVA: Has it been good to get back to low-key racing to the point where you can have Riccitello provide you details, or to be able to reach out to one of your prime competitors in Conrad Stoltz to get a bit of advice?
Armstrong: From what I’ve sensed, nobody feels threatened by my being here, which is great. Conrad’s a good example, James Bonney’s a good example, there are some others, they’re not intimidated by me and are willing to be helpful. I think they understand this is probably a good thing for this part of the sport. Conrad was great James I spoke with this morning—this whole wetsuit thing….
LAVA: With little stuff like cutting the ankles high?
Armstrong: It’s more with just getting it to fit right. I swim so much in the pool, so I needed info on how to get it up and fitting right so my stroke doesn’t end up feeling like the Michelin Man.
LAVA: More specifically, this guy (Riccitello) has been your go-to boy in this comeback?
Armstrong: He’s been trying to get me out there for years. This is funny, this (XTERRA) is the kind of race we’d always talked about doing first. People always talk about ‘Ironman, when are you gonna do Kona.’ I might do that, but XTERRA was the one we said we should do first, with a laid-back atmosphere, although it’ll be less laid back than usual with more attention, more media.
LAVA: A better choice from that standpoint than to jump into a 70.3.
Armstrong: Plus depending on the 70.3, it can be run-focused. With this, the emphasis of these races is the bike. If you can swim, get out and get a clear trail, you’re 90 percent there. You can’t say that about any 70.3.
LAVA: You mentioned some road stuff is in the pipeline. Is the idea to target the races with tougher bike courses, like something in Monaco….
Armstrong: …or Ironman France. In a perfect scenario I’d do France, and of course, Kona’s a bike race too. The swim is the thing that, if I ride the way I can, will surprise people.
LAVA: In the meantime, you portended to some more XTERRA stuff, potentially with Maui Worlds. You obviously love Hawaii, so that makes sense.
Armstrong: I was there last week and gave a speech, swam the swim course, ran the run course, so it’s on my mind.
LAVA: Jimmy says the XTERRA debut was a natural because you’ve been enjoying riding the mountain bike so much.
Armstrong: We’ve been in Aspen, and it’s just epic there. But I’ve been on the road bike, too. What I’ve been doing for these races is putting slicks on the 29er, and I take that with me. I was riding through New York City four days ago with this 29er and slicks. I was rippin,’ loving it.
LAVA: That leads to our next question. I hear Maui last week, New York City a few days ago. How the heck do you manage to find time for quality training?
Armstrong: You just gotta do it. If I’m at the foundation, they give me five or six hours to get it done, and then we work. But a lot of events like recently in Canada, they’re rides. Maui I was there for 25 hours but I had a little downtime, drove down to Kapalua, some of the XTERRA guys met me and drove the course, swam the swim, done. You just do it.
If you weren’t motivated, it’s very easy to go on these trips and sit by the pool.
LAVA: How has it been to get back into a level of racing that’s not as intensely result-based as it was for the last decade-plus, where you can look at the racing for its fun as opposed to as a job?
Armstrong: Yeah, who said it’s not results-driven? (laughs). But yeah, this is fun, but it’s still racing. I’m famous for sleeping. I’ll sleep anywhere, anytime, for 10 hours—every night. The night I was diagnosed, I drove home and said ‘fuck, I better get some sleep.’ Went to bed, nine hours—solid. Last night, I got up four times.! I went to bed at 9 and the alarm didn’t go off and I was like “I better get up.” Looked at my watch—it was midnight. It was fuckin’ XTERRA! I’ve got speedlaces on my mind! It’s terrible! All these little things…but, it’s alright.
LAVA: What’s got you sweating this?
Armstrong: Mass start open-water swim, I hadn’t done it forever. Transitions, I haven’t done forever. I was doing transitions in my garage last week. Just running over, jumping in my shoes.
LAVA: The question that always comes up is here again: is a start in Kona on your radar?
Armstrong: Well, it’s not in two weeks, so if it happened, it’d be in 54 weeks. I can’t do that. If I’m gonna do it, it’d be next year, because I’d need to train. I don’t wanna be 50 and go “I wanna do the Ironman now,” because… well, you’re 50, and you look back and go ‘shit, maybe I coulda done a good one when I was 40 or 41.
But that would require a total commitment. This, I travel around, have fun, I get on the bike, hammer when I wanna hammer, I swim with the group, we run every now and again.
LAVA: With France in mind, is this something you’re thinking hard about doing—carving out that training time—for next year?
Armstrong: France is in late June (June 24-ed)… man… we’ll see after these first few races.
LAVA: Do you look at other athletes in Ironman racing and consider how you’ll fare, where and when to lay down your cards?
Armstrong: I do the math all the time for Kona.
LAVA: Anything you’d care to reveal?
Armstrong: I think I can swim 50 comfortably, if not quicker.
LAVA: …and the thing everyone wants to know…
Armstrong: Well, you can ride it very very fast, but then you’ll be walking, and I don’t want to walk. 25 mph is 4:30. What does Lieto go? 24, 25. So, 26mph. But if you ride 4:20, you gotta run not a second slower than 2:50. And 2:50…. that’s not easy, man.
LAVA: So how are you getting your head around those metrics?
Armstrong: Well, that would require training. One of the largest issues among them—besides lifestyle, which is certainly a big question I have because I don’t know if I want to live that life anymore because I like travel and good food and red wine—is injuries. Long training can mean Injuries like the plantar fasciitis I’ve been dealing with, knee things.
LAVA: Is that stuff starting to lay down for you now?
Armstrong: Thanks to this guy giving me a massage right now, yeah.
LAVA: If that can all be sorted—the motivation to dedicate the time to training, is the race in Kona a compelling enough draw to make the effort?
Armstrong: The Big Island is such a compelling place for me. I literally see living there part time in the future. I love it. I love the vibe, I love the people, I love the heat. You know what it is? It’s consistent. It’s 82 and sunny, 300 days a year.
LAVA: Are you planning on watching the online broadcast of the Hawaii Ironman? If so, how do you see it panning out?
Armstrong: I watched last year on the internet. I gotta say though, it sucks sitting at my computer for eight hours! (laughs). So… McCormack’s not racing. Alexander maybe? He ran a 1:11 there in Vegas and whew… that’s fast. How’s Lieto? Earlier in the year he was betting everything on Kona. What about these Euro guys, Andreas Raelert, Marino…. You know, I just pay attention a little and talk to Jimmy a lot. A guy like Lieto, he’s gotta have 10 minutes and run 2:50, and the other guys really gotta chase. That’s awesome that Mark Allen’s run record still exists.
I think it seems that race is so unique, anything can happen. And I don’t speak from experience, but… it’s a hard fucking race. A hard bike course, it’s hot. If you’re not smart, it’s easy to make a mistake. I like all those guys—I respect the hell out of all of ‘em. I don’t know how they do it, run like that.
LAVA: OK, so what’s the story behind being the first person to swim in the Freak of Nature wetsuit from Tyr? The Tyr folks were very clear with the press at Interbike that the suit would debut in months, and we couldn’t take photos or really even touch the suit. And you got one.
Armstrong: Funny… I’d been trying a bunch of wetsuits and speedsuits and was really happy with Tyr’s Hurricane. I was flying back from New York City and surfing the Internet and see this story about “NEW $1,200 WETSUIT!” I started reading and email Jimmy and said “Why are they not sending me this one?!?” People were freakin.’ It’s sweet. It feels very good. The shoulders, the arms, pecs and chest, very supple.
LAVA: How much fun are you having with Juan Pelota, and how’s it interacting with the multisport fans in that way?
Armstrong: (laughs) It’s pretty fun. I try to interact with the fans. He doesn’t get pounded too much. If I ask for questions, he gets pounded. We’ve done that before. I love to keep it forward and positive.
LAVA: Last question: amid the years, you’ve kept this one little Italian (Riccitello) that you were racing against when you were a teen, in your close quarters. How valuable is it having him as a confident when you were doing team camps in Tucson in the past, through to now as your triathlon career comes full circle?
Armstrong: What, 25 years? He didn’t help me at all back then.
Riccitello: I was sabotaging him!
Armstrong: He was trying to take money out of the pocket of a 16-year-old kid! No… Jimmy, (Scott) Tinley, Mark Allen, Dave Scott, Mark Montgomery, Emilio (DeSoto), (Tom) Gallagher. We did a trip to Venezuela with Marc Suprenant, who recently died. We all got along. But Jimmy, we hung a lot. From when we did team camps in Tucson. He’s tried to get away from me a few times, but I never let him!
Read more: An Exclusive Chat with Lance Armstrong—The Triathlete : LAVA Magazine
http://lavamagazine.com/features/an-exclusive-chat-with-lance-armstrong%e2%80%94the-triathlete/#ixzz1Zk1vuBF9
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lance competes in Xterra and finished 5th
http://ceciliobenito.blogspot.com/2011/09/lance-xterra.html
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