Defending Lance

After two nights of watching Lance/Oprah, I am strangely motivated to go for a longish run this morning. As one who worships Lance, I wasn't sure what would happen if the day ever came where he admitted to cheating. Now that it is here, I am still fascinated and someone inspired by him. His unwavering love and laser focus on excelling at endurance sports gives my much less serious pursuit additional meaning and legitimacy. Rather than just slogging 6 miles for the sake of fitness or to do OK in some local half marathon, Lance makes it seem like a noble quest. And even in the face of a lifetime ban, he continues to work out in the hopes that he will be able to race sometime in the future. It's like religion has been banned but he is still sneaking off to church.

I understand that what he did was wrong; it's much more the bullying and sanctimonious piety that is the problem than the actual doping. I won't try and defend or explain that he is an asshole. But I will the doping side. Sports are about pushing your body beyond normal limits and beyond your competitors. In this environment, it is inevitable that people are going to try and get any edge, legal or not, and we can't be shocked when they do. Cycling and baseball have become cleaner in the last five years not because of greater morality, but because the tests have become so good that the athletes fear getting caught. We should try and catch them but I don't think they are immoral when they do.

I don't even take lifting that seriously and I take Creatine just to get a few extra reps added to my 200 pound bench press (it works - I've gone from 200-10 to 200-12). Imagine if there was serious $$ on the line in my bet with Mike on top of the total prestige, and someone told me I could take 7 minutes off my marathon time by taking a little white pill. I'm not so sure I would say no. And now imagine that there is a high degree of certainty that Mike is taking the pill already so if I don't I'm pretty much sure of losing. And this is the whole point of competitive sports - to do whatever it takes to win.

I hope I still have this emotion at mile 6 of my run.