Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Lance Redux

Not long ago I wrote a post about Lance Armstrong’s mental toughness. (Mind you, in this same post I commented on the mental toughness required to do paperwork all day and compared the blog to a bakery, so you should apparently take everything I say with a grain (or lump) {or glacier} of salt.) I waited eagerly for a comment from Mr. Armstrong, but he is obviously keeping his customary silence when it comes to the press, so I am forced to carry on without his help.

On that now long distant day I wrote:

In his heyday as a professional cyclist (and if “heyday” isn’t a strange word, I don’t know what is) Lance was renowned for his mental toughness and resilience. I guess we’ll see if taking a few years off from racing has done anything to reduce that mental toughness now.

So how is Lance doing in the mental toughness department?

Lance Armstrong returned to the open road on his bike yesterday in Austin, Texas, 10 days after he crashed and fractured his right collarbone in the Castilla y León stage race. The American had a successful operation (12 screws and a support plate) two days after the incident.

I "just went for a ride, on the road. If one of you 484,272 [followers] tells my doc then I'm in trouble. Keep it between us please," he posted in a lighthearted manner on Twitter.

Well, there you are. He’s up and going. Oh, and apparently lighthearted.

And what of his future plans?

The crash seemed to be a setback to his plans to race the Giro d'Italia from May 9-31. However, Armstrong now appears on track to line up with team Astana for the three-week stage race when it starts in Venice.

A broken collarbone typically requires four to six weeks for recovery. It will likely prohibit him from racing prior to the Giro.

Okay, so Lance is going to ride a three week Grand Tour without any actual racing ahead of time to get himself back in shape. Now, I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t race a Grand Tour if I had Eddy Merckx as my coach, a year to get in shape, and an operation to give me bionic legs, so Lance will, I’m sure, be happy to know that we here at the blog give him a hearty thumbs up for his mental toughness and resolution. You go, Mr. Armstrong.

(By the way, if you happen to not be a Lance fan, we salute you, too. We were going to put in a special feature so that you could substitute the name of your favorite ride in the above post so that it would be interesting reading for you, but, on the whole, we decided not to do so for a number of reasons. (Hey, two is a number.)

1. If you did put your favorite rider’s name in the above post, you would then be reading about your favorite rider having fallen and broken his collar bone, and we were afraid this news might upset you.

and, even more importantly:

2. We don’t know how.

I could sit here and hone my computer skills, I suppose, but, on the whole, I’d rather go for a ride.

See you on the road.

3 comments:

  1. Hey dude! You stil riding in the local cycle club? I need to get back out there, maybe next month. By then I'll be done wiht school - finally!! Let me know!
    Russ

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  2. Helllooooooo
    What is the deal my friend? I have not seen you on the bike in forever! Come on out and ride with us so you can have some good blogging material. Bring your lovely lovely on Tuesdays.
    Dude...Really! Miss Ya,
    Lisa

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  3. Hey, Luni! After two weeks with no posts, I hope you're just on vacation and that all is well. Safety to you on the roads!
    Cyclin' Missy

    ReplyDelete