A Conversation with Lance Armstrong

In Plano which is over about Dallas and I of course was born in Austin and grew up in Fort Worth and I have to tell you people who don't know anything about Texas. People from Fort Worth and Dallas don't have much to do with each other as a general rule. But we are going to break that rule today. Lance is a remarkable figure in every way and we all know about the work that he has done winning the 'Tour de France', we all know about his battle with cancer. And so we going to talk about all of that, but being a reporter I want to start with a news and I think that first thing people want to know what are you up to these days Lance? Actually to be honest I am on vacation. But I heard about the festival and then I was to asked to come down and so I was happy to do that. But truth to be told I was on vacation with my kids and we sort of finished our summer vacation. But in general I have retired from cycling obviously; so this will be the this upcoming Tour de France will be the second one that I have not done. But since then I have been working on the disease or working on cancer, trying to make a difference there, working with the foundation, trying to make the disease a national priority which is sometimes a struggle. But you know, it's the great thing about it's a competitive issue to me and so I need that in my life and so it's nice to have fortunately the you know in many ways the disease blessed me that way. You know I think there is one thing that you would say about Lance Armstrong. The one thing that defines you is that you just keep on keeping on; you never quit. And whether it was in your career in athletics or whether it was in your battle with cancer. I would like to go back and before your riding bicycles competitively and also before you discovered you had cancer in what age 26? 26. You grew up in Plano, what kind of a childhood did you have? Well I don't want to correct you but I was actually born in Dallas. Born in Dallas. Raised in Plano. You don't have to tell. I don't like to go back to Plano much. So I like to just say that I was born in Dallas. But I know you are from Fort Worth, so. We call that 'The Metroplex' 'The DFW Metroplex'. And so there is a big difference between the 'FW' and the 'D'. But anyways my entire family; my mother, my grandparents, were born and raised in Dallas. My mom had me when she was 17 years old. I never met my father. She was obviously in high school when she decided to have me, so this is in 1971, and in a poor part of Dallas what we call which you would know is called Oak Cliff. Of course everybody around her including her parents wanted didn't want her to have the baby. Fortunately for me, she did. But it was my mom never we certainly were poor and I didn't know we were poor until my mom actually wrote a book and I read the book. It was one of the most earth-shattering days of my life because I read the book in a day and I never knew that we struggled that much. She never gave me that perception. She always made me feel comfortable but she was a tough lady; she is five foot three, a 100 pounds and but has the mentality of a line backer. And so that you know you asked me what is this sort of keep on keeping on come from absolutely from her. And you know I get asked all time is your mom an athlete, is your dad an athlete. I can't answer the dad part, but I can answer the mom part. She is definitely not an athlete, but she is an incredibly tough lady. So you know she was my role model, she was my coach, my cheer leader, my cook, my driver. How did you get into riding bicycles competitively? That's a good well, at first what I ever did seriously was swimming. So I swam seriously and then as I was swimming I saw an ad for a kid's triathlon. So I thought, that sounds pretty good because I already ran a little bit. So then I went out and found a bicycle, got a bicycle in order to do the triathlon, swim, bike, run. And after that I quickly fell out of love with swimming and running and spent most of my time riding a bike and you know for me as a kid I started riding seriously when I was 13. It was just this this ability to just completely get away. So you could get away from Plano. We would go on 50 mile rides and you would be so far from home that I thought for a 13 year old that was pretty it was a pretty good feeling to get that far from home and still be able to get back. So I think that's in a lot of ways that's what the bike is to kids, it's their ability, its freedom to them. So when they leave the house and they turn the corner and mom is not looking, they can't see their house, their house can't see them, they are free. And so that was it was bit of an escape for me that way. What what appeal do you have had? Did you decide you wanted to be a professional? Or was it the the competition was it just the chance as you said to get away; to move up. What really do you think motivated you to devote the time and energy that you did to this because all great athletes in the end- that becomes the driving force in their life. Well it was interestingly enough it became a job very quickly. So I did my first triathlon when I was 13 and I immediately started improving and actually turned professional. So I was a professional triathlete at the age of 15. So I was going to high school and both training for professional triathlon; traveling all over the world, South America, Caribbean, Canada, all over the country; making money, so basically helping to support my mom. For a 15 or 16 year old and you are making some on the weekends and your buddies are you know out doing nothing good. It was a it was a pretty good deal. So that was sort of encouraging. But also it was just a it was an outlet for me and sport I guess for me many people sport is an outlet; I mean you see people to go for runs or rides or swims or hikes every day, that's an outlet, so its an it's your ability to go out and stay physically fit but also just take your mind off things and it was always was then a need, it still is today. Were you always in good shape? I mean was training a big part of it? Nutrition did you not know about those things in the beginning? No you didn't we didn't know about that. I mean when you are that age the only organized training I had was from the swim team. So we had a lot of organization there, great coach; nutrition back in the mid 80s was I mean it's completely evolved now. It's not at all what it was then. So I mean again my mom was the cook. So she she made you know cookies and banana bread all the time. I mean I was not a health food junky; so to say. So let's now fast forward to your what 25 years old. You have already won some major races by then and suddenly one day you start choking up blood. You go to the doctor and tell us what happened after that? Actually I actually called a doctor friend of mine who is a neighbor and I have been coughing up blood for about for about five minutes and so I was alarmed by that called him and he came down and I had unfortunately I had washed out the sink. But he looked to my throat and looked at my nose and thought since I had allergies perhaps I had cracked sinuses, blood was trickling down the back of my throat, coughed it up; and I sent him on his way and I said great, thanks for coming down. So I ignored that. But the real issue was was obviously the fact that I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, a sensitive health issue for a young man in the state of Texas. It's not the first thing hey guys, guess what? Check this out. I mean it wasn't that way. So I was a little hesitant to discuss that but the othersymptoms came along and forced me to. And so what happened? Surgery and then chemotherapy and a pretty long session? What the initial surgeries removed the infected testicule and then months of chemotherapy and then another surgery to remove two lesions on the brain because I had it had spread all over the place. You know Hamilton Jordan who was Jimmy Carter's and a great guy; we anybody who has had cancer and that includes me knows about Ham Jordan because you know I don't know how he finds out but he always calls; and says here is what you need to do. And and he called me when I had bladder cancer and he said the first thing you must do is take charge of your own disease; no body cares more about it than you do. No one will know more about it. You be in charge. Do the research, ask the questions and so on. What did you do and I think you probably did that; didn't you? You know I am so glad you asked that question; because this was in 1996. And I mean this is an Idea Festival so it just this will go to show you how ideas have evolved in the last 10 years and of course one of the greatest ideas being the internet. In 1996 I had a I had a you know; one of the early AOL accounts, there was no real ability to go online, there certainly wasn't a Google, you couldn't go in and type in "cancer" or "testicular cancer" or "bladder cancer" or "prostate cancer" or anything. So you are basically left to go in down to the bookstore; picking up fliers or pamphlets at the doctors office, or just asking around for advice, friends and family, "Hey you know anybody that has had cancer?" Of course I thought cancer was cancer and it's all the same and of course it's not. But so much has happened in 10 years and it's so much easier now to actually take charge. I mean to ask hard questions, if you want to if you want to consider second and third opinions, it's so much easier go online, learn about your disease and really overnight become a student of oncology and back then it was hard. But fortunately today with again outlets like a Google or WebMD or other medical sites you can you can really dive in pretty quickly. Because they thought you were not going to live for a year, didn't they? Some of the doctors when they first diagnosed this. They thought it was a tough case, 50-50, coin flip; I don't want to do it again. Yeah, well how did you feel though, because I think it's so important for people these days who find out that they have cancer to understand that this is no longer the death penalty automatically when you are told you have cancer, because everyday and everyway they find new and better ways to treat these diseases. And we all know and every expert who has anything to do with cancer will tell you that if you put enough money into the research eventually they will find a cure for cancer, right. But what I thought was so interesting in your case is you didn't just take this as the death penalty, you grabbed hold of it, you decided to fight it, you basically did just what you did with the bicycle. Well I looked at it as if it was a race or as if it was a competition. So it was me versus him or her or it, being the disease and so I absolutely hated him or her or it. And when the blood mark came back or the tumor markers came back then I was then I was getting better. I felt like, well I am winning you know scoreboard says I am winning. When the chest X-rays would come back and I would see the tumors in the lung starting to shrink, I am starting to win. So I took it I really viewed it as a fight and you know and I think also the reverse happened too when I was put back into the sport. I viewed my sport as a win or lose deal. I mean there was really there was when you are diagnosed with cancer, winning and losing is living and dying. And so the biggest fear there is dying, which is losing. So my biggest fear when I came back to race was losing. You also and I thought this was a very unusual thing; you began talking while you were being treated with chemo about putting together some kind of a foundation or something. Tell us about that and how you did that? And why you did that? Well, I mean you know we started Lance Armstrong Foundation yeah, over a little floor top in a Mexican Restaurant in Austin, Texas during the chemotherapy. And at the time we thought okay, you have a small population of young men that get this disease, 7,500 cases a year. We can do something to help them and the state of Texas at the time they had just removed just to give you an example, they had just removed the diagrams of the illustrations of a testicular self exam out of the public high school's textbooks. So I remember thinking, well of course they have all the other illustrations in there I remember thinking well, this isn't right. Let's just get that back in there and we can say we did a good job. But then it just grew and it evolved and then we expanded to other Urological cancers and then expanded more to survivorship and now into advocacy and other things and it has been 10 years. We have raised over $200 million and it has been something I mean yes it has been I remember when we got our first $1000 check, I thought we ran around the office for about an hour. It was the greatest day. And then we can get into the story of the yellow band, but the yellow band is what . Well out of the 200 million, 65 million of those dollars was the yellow band and I will just tell you a brief history of the yellow band. We were approached by Nike back in 2004 for the idea to take a little rubber bracelet, make it yellow; put "Live Strong" on it. They would give us a million dollar donation to start and also give us five million yellow wristbands that we could sell for a dollar five million of them. And I am thinking, first of all I don't really want to wear this thing because I was a little superstitious; they wanted me to wear at the tour, I am like I am not wearing it until I am in the Yellow Jersey. He said, no, no, no; you have to wear it. So we started to wear it actually earlier in the year. The tour happened, that was the year that I broke the record. The Olympic Games happened right after that which Nike was so great to give the band to athletes from all over the world. All different cultures and religions and it was really tense time politically and religiously around the world. I saw a lot of really powerful Muslim athletes wearing the yellow band and after that I mean we went to five million, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and now we are north of 65 million yellow wristbands and so it wasn't such a bad idea, after all. We want to talk about your racing career; we sure don't want to overlook that. Let me let's do this. I will ask Lance a couple of more questions while you all out there are thinking some questions that you might like to ask him. So put your thinking caps on here and I know there are a lot of people out there who would like to ask him a lot of questions. And as you have already learned Lance takes all the questions, I mean he didn't beat around the bush when he answers them. Let's talk about, so you get through the cancer and you try to get back to racing, what was that like? Was that pretty tough? It must have been. The toughest part was finding a team because in of course the cycling you may or may not know, you have to have a team. So it's not as if you are doing a triathlon or marathon where you can go out there alone. I actually had to go find a team. And I had no interest there was no interest from the European teams, none of the teams I was on before. I was on when I was actually diagnosed, I was on a French team that dropped me in the middle of the chemotherapy Karma - and then I the funny story is, there was one team that I just didn't want to be on and that was the American team, sponsored by the United States Postal Service. I thought there is no way I am riding for that team. I just thought it was a weird sponsor; I thought. Yeah, that's like being sponsored by the IRS or something, I don't know, I mean its but you know we joke about it now. But they turned out to be amazing partners and and listen; at the end of the day they were the only team and the only organization that would give me a shot. And so I kept telling my agent, "Look don't call the Postal Service; please don't call the Postal Service." And finally nobody calls back, so we have to call the Postal Service and I said "Okay." And then we went on I think we went on to transform the team and then ultimately transform the sport. What about just building up your own body and getting back your your strength. I mean you know I survived bladder cancer and it took me a while to to just back to feeling strong or you know feeling getting my strength back; did it take a while? Well I took my time. I took I mean I didn't race for 18 months. So and that's was on doctors orders. They said "Listen you need to spend at least a year just worrying about your health and getting check ups and not stressing yourself out", so I did a year of that and then I took about six months to get back in shape and then raced again after 18 months, so. Let's talk a little bit about doping in sports. Certainly that's an issue in in cycling. It's certainly an issue in all the other sports that I know. What's the answer Lance; to this? Boy and and I am glad you asked because I will I will answer any question and of course that's one of the most sensitive ones. I have been a target for that for the last 10 years. So I am used to those questions. Doping has existed forever; I mean the original Olympic Games had doping. Every sport has doping. Hard sports like the Tour de France, like cycling, have doping, because it's so difficult and so stressful that it's the option to cut a corner is always there and guys take it. The answer I feel and I and I I hesitate a little because I think and I am not smart enough to go into too much detail on this, but I think in 10, 15 years you are going to get into genetic doping and things that will never detect; which will be unfortunate because you will just have to look at the event go, okay this is entertainment, I don't care how they did it, I am just I am just being entertained. That will be a shame. I think right now the number one important most important thing we can do is out of competition testing. So for example the last few years that I raced which were the only years that they required that; I said where I was 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So they can come like if I was racing today, I would say, "I am here. This location, this address." They can walk in right now. They walked in. This was back in 2001 yes 2001; they walked in as we were walking out of the back door, to give birth to twins, they were knocking on the front door and I had to give the sample. Imagine trying to explain that to your wife. But that's the answer is is telling the athletes that they have to declare where they are. And fine, if they are not there, they are out training and they are doing something else they have 24 hours to be there. And if you are not there you are out. And the reason being with that is that no drug can clear the system that quickly. At least nothing that they supposedly know about so, yeah athletes have to be I mean, in competition testing you know it looks good, it sounds good, but the key is out of competition stuff when people are away, training camps, training hard, trying to recover; that's the key. I am interested you said there has always been doping. What kind of what substances were there? I mean I don't the ancient Greek guy, they chewed on I don't what they did, they did cocaine; I don't what they did, they chewed on coca, yeah I think so. That's what I was told. But I think that's I think there was always been some thing that could be perceived as doping all the way back in the ancient games. And then the other issue I will say is is of course the doormat of world sport is cycling. They are the sport that is taking it the hardest; baseball perhaps, but cycling has taken it harder than anybody else. Of course perhaps the problem is bigger because the sport is so much harder. I mean let's face it. Three weeks on the roads of the France over the Alps and Pyrenees and through the heat is a lot harder than a you know a nine inning game. It just is. I mean any sport where you can do tobacco at the same time is not is not nearly as harder as the Tour de France. But we have done more than I mean if you went to the if you went to Major League Baseball and you said; you are going to have random unannounced Out-of-competition controls they would tell you, you are crazy; Players Union, "No way, we are not playing another game." NFL, they will never do that. NHL, no way. Golf forget it, tennis forget it, they would never do it. But of course in cycling it's done more than anybody else. Perhaps that's why they have been caught more than anybody else. But you agree that it has to be done. I mean for the good of the sport and for the good of the athletes. I mean what do you what do you say to young people and all sports about this? It's not that you are just going to get caught; it's not good for you. Or is it? Well I think, yeah you have ask that question why do we fight doping. Do we fight doping to catch cheaters or do we fight doping to you know, to prevent health problems for the athletes? And I think that both are the right answer. But hopefully you know; you have to educate the athletes, especially younger ones that listen. You know 10 years of steroid abuse is just not good for you. I mean there are there are examples out there what that does to you. My case, I mean I came out of a life threatening disease; I was on my death bed. Do you think I am going to come back into the sport and say, "Okay okay, doctor give me everything you got, I just want to go fast." No way. I would never do that. And then of course this is supported by years and years and years of these Out-of-competition controls and other things that we have to go through. But that said I think that's a very interesting observation, test them all the time, not just while they are in competition. We really want to do away with it. Absolutely, 12 months a year.