Lance's Lowest low before his Highest high (the Seven Tour-de-France victories, highest by any individual till date)
-- from his autobiography - "Its not about the bike"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After Lance survives cancer he feels psychologically challenged, and starts wasting his life and even hates and evades cycling like the most wrong thing of his life. His wife (Kik) however was with him during this difficult period of his life, and finally made him get back on his bike. Lance was a champion one day racer, but not good in races that stretched over weeks, and this was before he was a victim to cancer. But it was a different story after he found his way back on to the saddle. He was a much better rider, and he was better at longer races, that stretched over weeks. In fact he became an all-round racer, and this helped him win the seven tours.
This post is an excerpt from his autobiography "Its not about the bike" which exhibits Lance's psychological state, and especially how Kik, Lance's wife, finally gets him back on his bike.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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 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."
...
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 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."
"I'm
out. I'm not racing anymore"
------
I was a
BUM. I played golf every day. I water skied, I drank beer, and I lay on the
sofa and channel surfed. I was given a second chance and I was determined to
take advantage of it. But it wasn't fun. It was lighthearted or free or happy.
It was forced. I tried to re-create the mood I'd shared with Kik on our first
European vacation, but this time, things were different, and I couldn't
understand why. The truth was, I felt ashamed. I was filled with self doubt and
embarrassed by what I'd done in Paris-Nice. Son,
you never quit. But I'd quit.
I know
now that surviving cancer involved more than just a convalescence of the body.
My mind and my soul had to convalesce, too . No one quite understood that -
except for Kik. She kept her composure when she had every right to be
distraught and furious with me for pulling the rug out from under her. While I
was playing golf every day, she was homeless, dogless, and jobless, reading
classifieds and wondering how we were going to support ourselves. My mother
sympathized with what she was going through. She would call us, ask to speak
with Kik, and say, "How are you doing?"
But after
several weeks of the golf, the drinking, the Mexican food, Kik decided it was
enough - somebody had to try to get through to me. One morning we were sitting
outside on the patio having coffee. I put down my cup and said, "Well,
okay, I'll see you later. It's my tee time."
"Lance,"
Kik said, "What am I doing today?"
"What
do you mean?"
"You
didn't ask me what I was going to do today. You didn't ask me what I wanted to
do, or if I minded if you played golf. You just told me what we were going to
do. Do you care what I'm doing?"
"Oh,
sorry," I said
"What
am I doing today?" she said. "What am I doing? Tell me that."
I was
silent. I didn't know what to say.
"You
need to decide something," she told me. "You need to decide if you
are going to retire for real, and be a golf-playing, beer-drinking,
Mexican-food-eating slob. If you are, that's fine. I love you, and I'll marry
you anyway. But I just need to know, so I can get myself together and go back
on the street, and get a job to support your golf-playing. Just tell me.
But if
you're not going to retire, then you need to stop eating and drinking like this
and being a bum, nd you need to figure it out, because you are deciding by not
deciding, and that is so un-lance. It is just not you. And I'm not quite sure
who you are right now. I love you anyway, but you need to figure something
out."
She
wasn't angry as she said it. She was just right. I didn't really know what I
was trying to accomplish, and I was just being a bum. All of a sudden I saw a
reflection of myself as a retiree in her eyes, and I didn't like it. She wasn't
going live an idle life, and I didn't blame her.
'Okay,"
I said. "let me think about it."
I went to
play golf anyway, because I knew Kik didn't mind that. Golf wasn't the issue.
The issue was finding myself again.
