Let's do a quick recap on Lance Armstrong:
Lance ran 2:46 for a marathon today, that's a pretty big PR. He's a couple of pounds lighter this year.
He was also caught making out with Ashley Olsen.
Comments? Thoughts?
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19 comments:
pix pls
yeah. "caught" is a word we use when you're doing something you're NOT supposed to do.
Wow I didn't think you were serious:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4259362a5620.html
Lance Armstrong is now officially the biggest pile of crap in the history of mankind, surpassing Pauly Shore and Attila the Hun.
oh, good grief. i was almost going to post my own lance rant, but since i don't have time, i'll post my rant on kangway's lance post:
i love lance the way *iii* remember him. from the beating cancer, winning the TdF days. the current lance is like a disgrace both to athletics and to humanity. its really disappointing to me that someone who's gone through so much and achieved so much and won so many battles--someone who i think of when i need inspiration to push myself harder, to endure something difficult, who epitomizes good character and perseverance, is just content upon retiring to become this vacuous, mediocre, even slightly sleazy celebrity personality.
its like, sure, he made a relatively large improvement from last year's disgraceful marathon, but really, for the man with the world's highest VO2max and lactic acid tolerance, 2:46? 2:46??? REALLY????
and ashley olsen? good grief. "caught" IS the right word, cuz she's like 12 years old and totally FUGLY!
ARGH. this makes me really, really mad. its like an exaggerated version of when you get a team member who's really talented but super lazy and undedicated. yes, its your choice to waste your talents... no you aren't obligated to do anything difficult or meaningful as defined by others, but i most certainly do NOT have to respect you, should those choices be yours.
/end rant>
Ryan, I only speak the truth.
Megumi, I think it's good to keep in mind that just because he's an ungodly cyclist, that doesn't make him an ungodly runner. I was personally pretty impressed with his 2:46, a big improvement on last year.
From the articles I read, his 26.2 mile adventure in 2006 lead to stress fractures in both of his shins, leading to a six month lay off from running.
You have to remember, being a great runner is not a formula. VO2Max and lactate threshold aren't everything. When it comes down to it, his stride just isn't as efficient as his pedalstroke, and that's that.
I still give him a lot of respect because while he's still out there partying and drinking and having a good time, he's also out doing a lot for his foundation. He's speaking publically, trying to gain support for the funding of cancer treatments, and I think there's a lot of good in that. For a guy who was not just some serious competitor, but THE serious competitor, he deserves a bit of a break right now. If he finds good in running, even if it's not at the most serious level, I say good for him. He's running when he can, he's obviously a lot fitter than the past few years, and he's satisfied with his own effort. Can you really ask more than thatout of your running? In a sense doesn't it come down to a sense of achievement and self satisfaction?
Ungodly is the right word. Other words include 'immoral' and 'cheat to win'.
"The fame was like a drug. But more like a drug were the drugs".
Ryan, just out of curiosity, you think any men in Saturday's race were on drugs?
EEEEEW. That is super narsty. Do you think she has speed goggles, he has age goggles, or both?
Looking at the top ten, I'd be really really shocked if any of them were caught doping. Ryan Hall? NO WAY.
"age goggles" - excellent. She is nasty.
barf. unfortunately i don't think she could claim to have speed goggles because that would require having enough brainpower to be able to tell a bicycle apart from her diet pills.
as for lance, clearly he's got something goggles cuz each of his women has been worse than the previous one. that's a good learning curve for you....
kangway, its nice that he still gives a crap about his cancer foundation and that he put a little bit more effort into his second marathon, but i guess what i object to is like, i HATE people who just kinda do only what's pleasant and comfortable. all distance runners know that if you are "satisfied with your own effort" short of how ryan described his boston marathon: "one second faster would have sent me to the hospital", then you've gone soft. i have no respect for such complacency.
relatedly, he could do SO much more with the money and the fame that he has. he could do so much more for american cycling, for cancer research. he COULD be so much as a coach, a role model, a spokesperson for a drug free sport (though ryan would argue he wouldn't do that cuz he cheats himself...) a lobbyist for more funding for medical research, etc. etc. there's just SO much a person could do with the resources that he has, and instead he spends most of his time trying to hang around celebrities and dating skanky women.
i feel SO bad for his two kids. if i were them i would be SO mortified that my father left an amazing wife in order to be photographed sucking face with some blonde ho-bag who's half his age. unbelievable! seriously.
Uhhhh, I don't think he just "ditched his wife" like you think he did. Do you really think it's so easy being a spokesperson for cancer? The guy has to travel like every other day to go to meetings. I don't think just because he has infinite resources means he has infinite time. He goes out there and promotes the foundation, and I think he does a pretty decent job at it.
I'm not sure you're giving him enough credit either. A guy runs way past his limit in his first marathon, and gets two stress fractures, he's running through some MONSTER pain right there.
I mean, Megumi, you can't train 24 hours a day because you have a job right? You can't just quit your job to train, or can you? Are you doing everything you can?
I don't think you can argue that lance could just quit and train for running. Some part of him compels him to go out there and help the foundation. He's got enough fame, and he's got enough money, so in a sense I don't think he can just quit doing it and just train full time for a marathon.
Why doesn't Lance try to make the Olympic Triathlon team? Not my idea, saw it on letsrun.
i like to think i do everything i can to be a decent human being... now that i'm getting to be old and grown up, i try to think about what message i would be sending if i did X, or whether Y would make my friends and family feel ashamed of me...
as i am not an elite athlete, i'm NOT obligated to ditch everything to train 24 hours a day, however, in the past when i've been less sick and broken, there have been times where i did devote every possible free moment to training, even the moments that might otherwise have been earmarked for being skanky and vacuous.
sure, no one has infinite time, and its clear that lance no longer WANTS to be a super elite athlete who IS obligated to spend 24 hours a day training. and that's FINE... but like dan feldman manages to be a grad student at caltech, maintain a long term relationship, reads to kids and does volunteer-y stuff, AND manages to run marathons 20+ minutes faster than lance. and dan definitely has fewer resources.
also, you DON'T get props simply for enduring pain. i think lance even admitted as much after his first marathon that he underestimated it and didn't train enough. if THAT is the reason you've acquired two stress fractures... uhhh, tough luck buddy. and sure, coming back from that, trying again, doing better and feeling good about that--good for him. really. i just don't think its "holy crap! amazing!!!" *iii* expect more from an elite athlete, before i'm ready to be impressed.
maybe its not entirely fair, but i DO think that famous people have a slightly higher obligation to be role models and to behave with decorum than the rest of us. i think i personally hold endurance athletes to a higher standard too, because i KNOW that to be an elite at that level you DO know what dedication and sacrifice mean.
when i think of ryan hall, i think of someone who's totally passionate, intense, ambitious, but still classy. i just wish i could still think of lance that way.
i was trying not to make a substantive reply, but my willpower failed.
RE: Olympic Triathlon
1)Lance is retired. That means not competing at the elite level any more.
2)He wouldn't make it. He wouldn't have enough time to work on his running and swimming before 2008, and he would be 40 in summer of 2012.
RE: his marathon
Lance is probably trying pretty hard. 2:46 or whatever isn't easy. Just because you're good at bicycling up mountains doesn't mean you're equally good at running up them. Adaptations of the lungs and heart are only one component of fitness. The muscular and neurological contributions are enormous, and do not transfer directly from biking fitness. If they did, elite cyclists and triathletes would be better at running than pure runners. Cyclists and triathletes train far more hours, and are in "better shape" in terms of the purely cardiovascular elements of fitness. But put a world champion triathlete in the US 10,000m champs, and watch Abdi and Ritz lap him - twice.
RE: Ashley Olsen
I fucked the Olsen Twins BEFORE they were famous.
RE: Megumi's unorthodox human being rating system
I guess it's not really worth responding any more, since we've been through this several times and neither of us seems to be convincing the other. But despite what your Sunday School teacher told you, people don't have little numbers floating above their head showing how meritorious they are. People really are trying their best at life. It might not seem that way to an outsider, but let's keep in mind that life is pretty hard.
Humans are evolved for living in a very different environment than the one they have created for themselves now. So yeah, many Americans are grossly obese, but it's not because they sit down and say, "You know, in my estimation the fleeting pleasure I get from eating an entire cheescake every night far outweighs the inordinate risks to my health, economic cost to the society that sustains me, and my own suffering due to the inability to perform rudimentary physical tasks such as walking a mile."
So an obese person, or a lazy person, or a debaucherous person isn't someone who "gets no respect" from me. After all, let he who is without sin throw the first stone, right? My focus ought to be on living my own life first. Second, in seeing how I might be able to accomplish the first task in synergy with other people doing the same.
Wouldn't it be a better first step towards mutual progress to try first to get a better understanding of why someone who does things I don't like makes the decisions they do, rather than to withhold my respect from them and go about my life in grace and moral superiority?
I agree with Mark.
MAN, WHERE HAS EVERYONE BEEN. THIS RAGING DEBATE IS AWESOME!!!!
you know, i'm actually really curious.... maybe the next caltech blog poll question should be: do you find lance's 2007 marathon to be impressive from an athletic achievement standpoint?
the thing is, i agree, cycling and running DON'T translate at all. in fact the running muscles and cycling muscles could be argued to be so opposite that one inhibits the other. however, lance is sufficiently many years past his TdF prime, that i don't think that counts as an excuse any more. top triathletes manage marathons in about that time AFTER a buttload of swimming and cycling. people who are not elite swimmers, cyclists or runners (even some girls!) manage 2:46 marathons. so... i guess i just don't understand why i'm obliged to be bowled over that lance can run one too... i think some other cyclists who've tried marathons for the heck of it have run in the 2:45 range. to me, its just like "meh, thats nice"
i do agree that everyone's first focus should be to live one's own life the best they can, and to seek synergy with those around them. but i don't necessarily think that just because life is hard, doesn't mean that we're obligated to make excuses for and respect everyone! i don't expect everyone around me to respect me, and they are perfectly free to respect or not respect me for whatever reason. ergo, i don't feel particularly bad about doling out or withholding respect based on the values that i hold dear. for the record, its obviously easier to understand the people who are around us and what drives them and what their weaknesses are and how much they do try and mean well and what not... but what fun would it be if we weren't allowed to make conjectures about famous people and have opinions about why they do what they do and whether we find that admirable or not?
i'm irritated by post elite athlete lance, because i think i DO understand why he is doing what he's doing. to me, it seems likely that he's behaving like an 18 year old heir to old money because he HAS had to work so hard in his life to get to where he is and his life has been filled with so many difficulties, so he feels like he deserves to have all of the fun he didn't get to have, now. and that annoys me cuz that's the mark of a weak person... you don't GET to stop being a responsible person forever, just because you think you've paid your dues already. like, sure take a year off after 4 years of caltech... but that doesn't mean you should just loll around and do nothing for the rest of your life just cuz you happened to go to a hard school for undergrad.
sure, i would agree with the statement that no one is "better" than someone else, or more "meritorious" as mark would put it... but i just feel like we're SO far into this enlightened age of loving and accepting everyone--oooh, we're all ever so talented and special and trying in our own unique ways.... wonk wonk wonk. people should be ALLOWED to have negative opinions. i find person X annoying... i disrespect Y choices... good heavens, person Z is a fucking waste of space...
having such sentiments doesn't mean that you think you're better than everyone else... they do not make you a Mean and Horrible Bad Bad Person... really!
Megumi, I still think you're judging Lance sort of harshly. The man hasn't been running regularly for decades!
I mean, do you think if we put Haile Gebrselassie on a bike he would automatically be winning Cat 1 races? Sure, he's an aerobic machine, but muscularly it's all so different. I think we're judging him a bit too quick, and I think that really, as the years go on and even though he'll be getting older, his marathon times will drop. I somehow have the feeling that if he keeps on running for another 5 or 6 years, he'll easily be a ~2:25 guy because his body will start to change. He said he's really not riding his bike much anymroe, and I think if he makes this NYC thing a habit, you'll be seeing 2:20's out of him in no time.
Also I find your analogy of a caltech student taking a year off sort of inadequate. He might be a irresponsible playboy by night but by day he's out there fighting the fight. I think a more adequate analogy would be a caltech student is sick of getting raped for four years so he takes a year off before graduate school and tutors underprivileged children by day but parties hardcore at night.
I asked Erin (the athletic trainer) about Lance, and she said something similar to Kangway. According to her, spending years training for one sport (ie, cycling) has a definite effect on your body long term - there's some combo of long term muscle coordination/strength and neuromuscular memory that can't just be overridden by a few months or years doing another sport (ie, running). So, while it is certainly impressive that his VO2 max is superhuman, this doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to be a running machine.
yeah, i mean i can certainly accept that--however, i am still not obligated to be impressed with this marathon. a lot of non-runners decide to train for a year and complete a marathon in a decent time. and that's fantastic. i think what lance is doing is about the equivalent of that in terms of impressiveness, and i shall not be ceding ANY extra credit, just because he's a famous person. at such time that he runs a 2:2X, which i am not saying is impossible, i will be perfectly happy to stand corrected and be impressed.
but just for the record, i'm not as pissed that he's not putting in as much effort into running as would merit my regard... i'm more pissed about the whole ashley olsen thing. like for a few years, the doubts have been creeping into my brain that lance is still as fantastic as i like to remember him.... but this is REALLY the straw that broke the camels back. he is 36 years and a father of two. the age range where it is acceptable to drink too much and make out with underage girls has passed for him about 10 years ago. sure, be crazy and do whatever you want when you're in college... or maybe even grad school, but things CHANGE once you have kids, once you have responsibilities... and i'm just having some trouble scraping up adequate respect for someone who is behaving that way in his situation.
i used to be SO sure that he was a strong, classy athlete, and he would NEVER dope, but like, i'm not so sure anymore. Peter claims that someone uncovered results of an "anonymous" urine sample testing scheme, where they freeze the urine of TdF cyclists for 10 years and re-drug test it with all of the technological advances, and a sample that belonged to lance tested positive for all sorts of things that were "undetectable" at the time. you know, i'm starting to think maybe there's actually some truth to that.
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