Strong Man

Lance Armstrong's fight with cancer is public and pugnacious. And don't think that retirement from cycling, grand-jury investigations, or training for the Chicago Marathon this fall will change that.

June 2, 2011

We were fortunate. We got to be old.

Exactly. It beats the alternative.

What are your goals for LiveStrong? Where do you need to take this organization?

My goal is very simple. It's not an easy one, and it doesn't have to be in the near future, but my goal is to put ourselves out of business. Plain and simple. Make our office an art gallery. Take the name off the door. We don't need those resources any more.

On some level, it's a marathon. I don't know if we're halfway there. I don't think anybody knows. But I refuse to be in the business of saying, "I don't think we'll ever figure it out," or, "Boy, we've got a long way to go." You have a choice: You can be optimistic or pessimistic. And I'm choosing to be optimistic.

What about the doping controversy? It seems like it won't go away.

Right. Never will.

I think we're 11 years into it now.

More. More than 11.

Is it a big problem for LiveStrong?

Well, we can measure that. We can compare ourselves to [where we were] a year ago, and then compare ourselves to other organizations. And I can tell you that 2011 [fund-raising] is up significantly over 2010. So the bulk of the noise--most of it has occurred in the last year--has had no impact. In fact, you can say without a doubt we're doing better than we were a year ago, amidst all of this controversy. It helps me sleep at night to know that our constituents have faith in our mission, have faith in our people, have faith in this organization, and are undeterred by old, discredited, baseless allegations from years ago. Some of them 15 years ago. Some of them 10 years ago. Still, a long time ago. I mean, I get asked all the time...

It's the question that's always going to be asked.

Yeah, yeah. I refuse to let it bother me. The press has jumped on it, but have I ever walked down the street and felt it? No. Have I ever stepped in front of an audience of a thousand people and felt it? No. Have I ever walked into a Starbucks and felt it? No. Ever been on a bike ride and felt it? Never. If I didn't pick up and read the paper, I'd never know. It has absolutely zero impact on what we do on a daily basis.

You know what's under all these trees? [Gestures around the yard.] A lot of roots. They go down, and they go out. And these trees move around a lot--you know, it gets windy, you go and push on 'em and they'll move around a little bit, but you're not ever going to push 'em over. We have to have faith in the roots.

Going forward, what's the challenge for you? How will you gauge success? Who will you run down next?

I run because I want to. There are a lot of people who say, "Why? Why would you want to run a marathon? You just spent 20 years being a professional cyclist. Go play golf. Go fishing." But I don't enjoy those things. This is what I enjoy.

Today was a hectic day. But tomorrow, I'm not doing anything. I'm going to sleep in a little bit. I'm going to have coffee and read the papers. And then I'm going to go for a run. Just because I want to.