It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life (20 page)

things out. Thorn’s office was an imposing suite in the Transamerica building »with sweeping views, and Bill went there with some trepidation.

Bill sat down with Thorn and Mark Gorski. Abruptly, Thorn said, “Bill, what does he want?”

“He wants a base salary of $215,000,” Bill said. “Also, he wants an incentive clause.”

The International Cycling Union awarded bonus points on the basis of performances in big races, and if I got enough good results, I could make up in bonuses what they wouldn’t pay me

in salary. Bill told him I wanted $500 for every bonus point I collected up to 150, and $1,000 for every point after that.

“Would you consider a cap on the maximum number of ICU points?” Thorn asked.

In a way that was a compliment, because it meant they were concerned that I might perform so well that it would cost them big money.

“No way,” Bill said.

Thorn stared at Bill with the long cold gaze of an expert negotiator. For weeks now, we had gotten no results at the negotiating table, and Thorn Weisel was as tough and unflinching as

they came. But he also knew me and believed in me. Thorn opened his mouth to speak. Bill braced himself.

“I’ll cover it,” Thorn said. “Consider it done.”

Bill almost sighed aloud with relief. We had a deal; I was a racer again. I signed the agreement, and we held a big press conference to introduce me as a team member. At the press conference,

I said, “I don’t feel like damaged goods. I just feel out of shape, which I am.” I would spend November and December training in the States, and then go overseas in January to resume

racing for the first time in 18 long months. It meant returning to my old life of living out of a suitcase and riding all over the continent.

But there was a complication now: Kik. I went to Piano to see my mother. Over coffee on a Saturday morning, I said, “Let’s go look at diamonds today.” My mother beamed. She knew

exactly what I was talking about, and we spent the day touring the best jewelers in Dallas.

I returned to Austin and planned a dinner at home for just Kik and me. We sat on the seawall behind my house, watching the sunset over Lake Austin. Finally, I said, “I have to go back to

Europe, and I don’t want to go without you. I want you to come with me.”

The sun disappeared behind the riverbank, and dusk settled over us. It was still and dark except for the glow spilling out of my house.

I stood up. “Something came today,” I said. “I want to show it to you.”

I reached into my pocket and clasped the small velvet box.

“Step into the light,” I said.

I opened the box, and the diamond collected the light.

“Marry me,” I said.

Kik accepted.

We had never talked about my prognosis. She had come with me to my monthly checkups, and sat with me in front of those X rays, but we never felt the need to discuss the big picture. When

we became engaged, however, a friend of her mother’s said, “How could you let your daughter marry a cancer patient?” It forced us to think about it for the first time. Kik just said, “You

know, I would rather have one year of wonderful than seventy years of mediocre. That’s how I feel about it. Life’s an unknown. You don’t know. Nobody knows.”

Kik and I packed up all our things and drove cross-country to Santa Barbara, California, where I entered an intense two-month training camp. We rented a small house on the beach, and we

became so sentimental about it that we decided we wanted to be married there. We planned a wedding for May. First, however, we would move to Europe in January and spend the ‘98

winter and spring racing season overseas. I got back in the gym and did basic rebuilding work, leg presses and squats, and I steadily lengthened my training rides. I surprised everyone with

how well I rode during training camp in Santa Barbara. One afternoon I rode some hills with Frankie Andreu, and he said, “Man, you’re killing everybody and you had cancer.”

I was now officially a cancer survivor. On October 2,1 had celebrated the one-year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis, which meant that I was no longer in remission. According to my

doctors, there was only a minimal chance now that the disease would come back. One day, I got a note from Craig Nichols. “It’s time to move on with your life,” he wrote. But how do you

survive cancer? That’s the part no one gives you any advice on. What does it mean? Once you finish your treatment, the doctors say, You’re cured, so go off and live. Happy trails. But there

is no support system in place to help you to deal with the emotional ramifications of trying to return to the world after being in a battle for your existence.

You don’t just wake up one morning and say, “Okay, I’m done with cancer, and now it’s time to go right back to the normal life I had.” Stacy Pounds had proved that to me. I was physically

recovered, but my soul was still healing. I was entering a phase called survivorship. What shape was my life supposed to take? What now? What about my recurring nightmares, my dreams?

SURVIVORSHIP

WHHILE I WAS SICK, I TOLD MYSELF I’D NEVER

cuss again, never drink another beer again, never lose my temper again. I was going to be the greatest and the most clean-living guy you could hope to meet. But life goes on. Things change,

intentions get lost. You have another beer. You say another cussword.

How do you slip back into the ordinary world? That was the problem confronting me after cancer, and the old saying, that you should treat each day as if it might be your last, was no help

at all. The truth is, it’s a nice sentiment, but in practice it doesn’t work. If I lived only for the moment, I’d be a very amiable no-account with a perpetual three-day growth on my chin. Trust

me, I tried it.

People think of my comeback as a triumph, but in the beginning, it was a disaster. When you have lived for an entire year terrified of dying, you feel like you deserve to spend the rest of your

days on a permanent vacation. You can’t, of course; you have to return to your family, your peers, and your profession. But a part of me didn’t want my old life back.

We moved to Europe in January with the U.S. Postal team. Kik quit her job, gave away her dog, leased her house, and packed up everything she owned. We rented an apartment in Cap Ferrat,

halfway between Nice and Monaco, and I left her there alone while I went on the road with the team. A race wasn’t an environment for wives and girlfriends. It was no different from the

office; it was a job, and you didn’t take your wife to the conference room.

Kristin was on her own in a foreign country, with no friends or family, and she didn’t speak the language. But she reacted typically, by enrolling herself in a language-intensive French school,

furnishing the apartment, and settling in as if it was a great adventure, with absolutely no sign of fear. Not once did she complain. I was proud of her.

My own attitude wasn’t as good. Things weren’t going so well for me on the road, where I had to adjust all over again to the hardships of racing through Europe. I had forgotten what it was

like. The last time I’d been on the continent was on vacation with Kik, when we’d stayed in the best hotels and played tourists, but now it was back to the awful food, the bad beds in dingy

road pensions, and the incessant travel. I didn’t like it.

Deep down, I wasn’t ready. Had I understood more about survivorship, I would have recognized that my comeback attempt was bound to be fraught with psychological problems. If I had a bad

day, I had a tendency to say, “Well, I’ve just been through too much. I’ve been through three surgeries, three months of chemo, and a year of hell, and that’s the reason I’m not riding well.

My body is just never going to be the same.” But what I really should have been saying was.

“Hey, it’s just a bad day.”

I was riding with buried doubts, and some buried resentments, too. I was making a fraction of

my old salary, and I had no new endorsements. I sarcastically called it “an eighty-percent cancer tax.” I’d assumed that the minute I got back on the bike and announced a comeback, corporate

America would come knocking, and when they didn’t, I blamed Bill. I drove him nuts, constantly asking him why he wasn’t bringing me any deals. Finally, we had a confrontation via

phone–I was in Europe, he was back in Texas. I began complaining again that nothing was happening on the endorsement front.

“Look, I’ll tell you what,” Bill said. “I’m going to find you a new agent. I’m not putting up with this anymore. I know you think I need this, but I don’t. So I quit.”

I paused and said, “Well, that’s not what I want.”

I stopped venting on Bill, but I still brooded about the fact that no one wanted me. No European teams wanted me, and corporate America didn’t want me.

My first pro race in 18 months was the Ruta del Sol, a five-day jaunt through Spain. I finished 14th, and caused a stir, but I was depressed and uncomfortable. I was used to leading, not

finishing 14th. Also, I hated the attention of that first race. I felt constrained by performance anxiety and distracted by the press circus, and I wished I could have just shown up unannounced

and ridden without a word, fighting through my self-doubts anonymously. I just wanted to ride in the peloton and get my legs back.

Two weeks later, I entered Paris-Nice, among the most arduous stage races outside of the Tour de France itself, an eight-day haul notorious for its wintry raw weather. Before the race itself

was the “prologue,” a time-trial competition. It was a seeding system of sorts; the results of the prologue would determine who rode at the front of the peloton. I finished in 19th place, not bad

for a guy recovering from cancer, but I didn’t see it that way. I was used to winning.

The next morning I woke up to a gray rain and blustering wind, and temperatures in the 30s. As soon as I opened my eyes I knew I didn’t want to ride in that weather. I ate my breakfast

morosely. I met with the team to discuss the strategy for the day, and we decided as a squad that if our team leader, George Hincapie, fell behind for any reason, we would all wait for him and

help him catch up.

In the start area, I sat in a car trying to keep warm and thought about how much I didn’t want to be there. When you start out thinking that way, things can’t possibly get any better. Once I got

out in the cold, my attitude just deteriorated. I sulked as I put on leg warmers and fought to keep some small patch of my skin dry.

We set off on a long, flat stage. The rain spit sideways, and a cross-wind made it seem even colder than 35 degrees. There is nothing more demoralizing than a long flat road in the rain. At

least on a climb your body stays a little bit warm because you have to work so hard, but on a flat road, you just get cold and wet to the bone. No shoe cover is good enough. No jacket is good

enough. In the past, I’d thrived on being able to stand conditions that made everyone else crack. But not on this day.

Hincapie got a flat.

We all stopped. The peloton sped up the road away from us. By the time we got going again, we were 20 minutes behind the leaders, and in the wind it would take an hour of brutal effort

for us to make up what we had lost. We rode off, heads down into the rain.

The crosswind cut through my clothes and made it hard to steady the bike as I churned along the side of the road. All of a sudden, I lifted my hands to the tops of the handlebars. I

straightened up in my seat, and I coasted to the curb.

I pulled over. I quit. I abandoned the race. I took off my number. I thought, This is not how I want to spend my life, freezing and soaked and in the gutter.

Frankie Andreu was right behind me, and he remembers how I looked as I rose up and swung off the road. He could tell by the way I sat up that I might not race again for a while–if ever.

Frankie told me later that his thought was “He’s done.”

When the rest of the team arrived back at the hotel at the end of the stage, I was packing. “I quit,” I told Frankie. “I’m not racing anymore, I’m going home.” I didn’t care if my teammates

understood or not. I said goodbye, slung my bag over my shoulder, and took off.

The decision to abandon had nothing to do with how I felt physically. I was strong. I just didn’t want to be there. I simply didn’t know if cycling through the cold and the pain was what I

wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Kik was grocery shopping after school when I reached her on her cell phone. “I’m coming home tonight,” I said. She couldn’t hear because the reception wasn’t great, and she said, “What?

What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said.

“Are you hurt?” She thought I had crashed.

“No, I’m not hurt,” I said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

A couple of hours later, Kik picked me up at the airport. We didn’t say much until we got in the

car and began the drive home. Finally, I said, “You know, I’m just not happy doing this.”

“Why?” she said.

“I don’t know how much time I have left, but I don’t want to spend it cycling,” I said. “I hate it. I hate the conditions. I hate being away from you. I hate this lifestyle over here. I don’t want to be

in Europe. I proved myself in Ruta del Sol, I showed that I could come back and do it. I have nothing left to prove to myself, or to the cancer community, so that’s it.”

I braced myself for her to say, “What about my school, what about my job, why did you make me move here?” But she never said it. Calmly, she said, “Well, okay.”

On the plane back to Cap Ferrat I’d seen an advertisement for Harley-Davidson that summed up how I felt. It said, “If I had to live my life over again I would . . .” and then it listed several

things, like, “see more sunsets.” I had torn it out of the magazine, and as I explained to Kik how I felt, I handed her the ad, and I said, “This is what’s wrong with cycling. It’s not what my life

should be.”

“Well, let’s get a good night’s sleep, and wait a couple of days and then make a decision,” she said.

The next day Kik went back to her language school, and I didn’t do a thing. I sat alone in the apartment all day by myself, and I refused to even look at my bike. Kik’s school had a strict rule

that you weren’t supposed to take phone calls. I called her three times. “I can’t stand sitting around here doing nothing,” I said. “I’ve talked to the travel agent. That’s it. We’re leaving.” Kik

said, “I’m in class.”

“I’m coming to get you. That school’s a waste of time.” Kik left the classroom and sat on a bench outside, and cried. She had fought the language barrier for weeks. She had managed to

set up our household, figured out how to do the marketing, and mastered the currency. She had learned how to drive the autoroute, and how to pay the French tolls. Now all of her effort was

for nothing.

When I arrived to pick her up she was still crying. I was alarmed. “Why are you crying?” I said.

“Because we have to leave,” she said.

“What do you mean? You’re here with no friends. You can’t speak the language. You don’t have your job. Why do you want to stay here?” “Because it’s what I set out to do, and I want to finish

it. But if you think we need to go home, then let’s do it.”

That night was a whirlwind of packing, and Kik attacked it with as much energy as she had getting us unpacked in the first place. In 24 hours we did more than most people do in two

weeks. We called Kevin Livingston, and gave him all of our stuff–towels, silverware, lamps,

pots, pans, plates, vacuum cleaner. I said to Kevin, “We’re never coming back. I don’t want this junk.” Kevin didn’t try to talk me out of it–he knew better. Instead, he was very quiet. I could

see on Kevin’s face that he didn’t think I was doing the right thing, but he wasn’t going to say a word. He had always worried about my coming back, anyway. “Just watch your body,” he’d say.

“Take it easy.” He had lived through the whole realm of the disease with me, and the only thing he cared about was my health. As I loaded him down with boxes he was so sad I thought he

might cry. “Take this,” I said, handing him boxes full of kitchenware. “Take all of it.”

It was a nightmare, and my only good memory of that time is of Kik, and how serene she seemed in the midst of my confusion. I couldn’t have blamed her if she was about to break; she

had quit her job, moved to France, sacrificed everything, and almost overnight I was ready to move back to Austin and retire. But she stood by me. She was understanding and supportive

and endlessly patient.

Back home in the States, everybody was wondering where I was. Carmichael was at home at eight o’clock in the morning when his phone rang. It was a French reporter. “Where is Lance

Armstrong?” the reporter asked. Chris said, “He’s in Paris–Nice.” The reporter said in broken English, “No, he is stop.” Chris hung up on him. A minute later the phone rang again–it was

another French reporter.

Chris called Bill Stapleton, and Bill said he hadn’t heard from me. Neither had Och. Chris tried my cell phone, and my apartment. No answer. He left messages, and I didn’t return them, which

was unusual.

Finally I called Chris from the airport. I said, “I’m flying home. I don’t need this anymore. I don’t need the crappy hotels, the weather, the lousy food. What is this doing for me?”

Chris said, “Lance, do whatever you want. But don’t be rash.” He continued calmly, trying to buy me a little time. “Don’t talk to thepress, don’t announce anything, don’t say you’re going to

quit,” he warned me.

After I called Chris, I reached Stapleton. “I’m done, man,” I said. “I showed them I could come back, and I’m done.”

Bill kept his cool. “Okaaaay,” he said. He had already talked to Chris, and he knew everything. Like Chris, he stalled.

Bill suggested that I should wait on the retirement announcement. “Let’s just give it a week or so, Lance. It’s too crazy right now.” “No, you don’t understand. I want to do it now.” “Lance,”

Bill said, “I understand you’re retiring. That’s fine, but we need to discuss a few things. Let’s just give it a couple of days.” Next, I called Och. We had one of our typical conversations. “I quit

Paris-Nice,” I said. “That’s not such a big deal.” “I’m out. I’m not racing anymore.” “Don’t make the decision today.”

Kik and I flew back to Austin in a trail of jet lag. As we walked in the door, the phone was ringing constantly, with people looking for me and wondering why I had disappeared. Finally,

things quieted down, and after a day of sleeping off the jet lag, Kik and I met with Bill in his downtown law office.

I said, “I’m not here to talk about whether I’m riding again. That’s not up for discussion. I’m done, and I don’t care what you think about it.”

Bill looked at Kik, and she just looked back at him, and shrugged. They both knew I was in one of those moods that couldn’t be argued with. By now, Kik was a shell of a woman, exhausted