Episode 502: Lance Armstrong on VO2 Max, Endurance Genetics, and Why Cycling Beat Running

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Speaker 2 Let's go back to Little Lance. Let's kind of like chronologically do this, okay?

Speaker 2 Because when you were Little Lance, because you were not always, you weren't, you didn't start off as a cyclist, right? You started off like you were doing swimming, I heard.

Speaker 1 So, yep, swimming was my first serious sport.

Speaker 2 Do you still swim?

Speaker 1 Occasionally, it's funny. I so when you're my age and you swim seriously, you would swim what they call masters, right? I know masters,

Speaker 1 right? But most people listening may not know masters. Masters is it's it looks like a swim team for old people, yeah.

Speaker 1 So, I grew up swimming with kids. And so

Speaker 1 if you're a serious swimmer at that age, you swim what they call age group swimming, right?

Speaker 1 So kids, when they're young, they can sort of do the summer country club swim league, which is just in the summer. Or if you swim year-round and you swim more serious, you swim age group, right?

Speaker 1 So like Michael Phelps, Katie Ladecki, they grew up swimming age group swimming. So that means they swam twice a day, every day, 12 months a year.
That's how I grew up swimming.

Speaker 1 So then when you get older and you want to be a serious swimmer, you swim masters, right? And so that's when I, like 15 years ago, I started swimming again, seriously.

Speaker 1 And the masters team that I swam with is like two blocks from my house. I could walk there every day.
Yeah. And I just, I don't go that often.

Speaker 1 And I haven't been in a while, but I can, I still enjoy swimming. I don't love chlorine.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, I do. To be honest with you.

Speaker 1 Chlorine, you know, if I, if I lived at the beach, I would probably swim open water. I'd probably swim almost every day.
But the chlorine thing and you just kind of.

Speaker 2 It kind of steers you away from that. So my question more was like, okay, so you started off in swimming.
Like, how did you get into cycling?

Speaker 2 Was it, did you have, it seems to me, like your endurance is off the charts genetically? Were you tested? Did you have like, did you, was it just something?

Speaker 2 How did you know that cycling was going to be the sport? You did swimming, which was an endurance thing.

Speaker 1 And then I started doing triathlons. Right.
and then i turned pro in triathlon when i was 15.

Speaker 1 okay and so then i knew that i had i was getting results as a 15 year old kid racing against 30 year old men right that you didn't need to be in a lab to

Speaker 1 to know that you had some that i had the dna or the talent to be an endurance athlete but at that time i did i lived in i grew up in dallas so i went I got asked to go be tested at a place in Dallas called the Cooper Clinic, which is pretty well known.

Speaker 1 It's a place that it's not dissimilar to Mayo Clinic or other places where folks will go and get tested.

Speaker 1 So I went as a young kid and the testing, you know, I did a VO2 max test and all these things and the physiologist was like, wow, this is, I'm not sure we've seen a VO2 like this before.

Speaker 1 So, but again. Do you remember what it was? I mean, I'm 53.
It was 40 years ago. So, no, but it was high.

Speaker 2 Yeah, very, I heard it was 86. I don't know if that was right.
That's what I read.

Speaker 1 Who knows? It's funny. VO2 is having a moment again.
Like, I feel like,

Speaker 1 you know, when we were at that, when I was that age, and then

Speaker 1 when I was cycling and at the Olympic Training Center, we, we would test VO2 Max. And then it kind of,

Speaker 1 you know, maybe it was prohibited because you needed all, you needed the lab, you needed the equipment. And now they've got these mobile units.
And so it's having a moment again. It is.

Speaker 1 And so anyhow, but it's, it's, there's a lot of different variables when it comes to potenti max but why okay because another endurance like when the tri why cycling and not running like why why did you single out cycling well a couple things one i enjoyed cycling more okay that's a good reason who wouldn't yeah right i mean if you're if you have the option to to to go for four or five hours and see 80 miles of beautiful terrain versus in no impact on the body versus you know you know seeing 15 miles miles of beautiful terrain and a lot of it.

Speaker 1 I just, I just, and I was better at cycling. I quickly figured out that, that cycling was my strength.
Now, when I was a young kid and doing triathlons, I could swim with the front group.

Speaker 1 So I would come out of the water with the leaders. I would come off the bike with the leaders and they would run away from

Speaker 1 these guys that I would race with would run away from me. Because they were, I mean, they were 30-year-old men.
They run a lot faster. And so,

Speaker 1 I mean, I still would finish top 10, but, but I knew that cycling was going to be the best of those of the three. So then I started to just gradually transition to cycling.

Speaker 1 And I went to the Olympic Training Center. And then I got selected for the junior world championships team, which was in 1989, which was in Moscow, which is kind of wild.
I mean,

Speaker 1 this would have been in August of 89.

Speaker 1 before the wall came down.

Speaker 1 Like I was a, you know, what I was a 17-year-old old kid in moscow like it was it was that's crazy like this is and and so that that was and then pretty much a year or two later i switched full-time what how old were you when you won the first tour de france how old are you um

Speaker 1 27 years old Your first one was 27.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 1 So I think that's right. I'm trying to do the math.
1999. Yeah, maybe, maybe 28, actually.

Speaker 1 Geez.

Speaker 2 Well, because what's I want to like, how, how do you train for that? Because I think people are, you hear it super grueling. It's like, it's, it's, it's.

Speaker 1 That's all true. It's, I heard it.
It is grueling. It's horrible.

Speaker 2 Like, I, people, like, you, you, you hear like little rumblings, but people who are not cyclists or who don't follow it, can you describe why it is as grueling as people hear rumors to be?

Speaker 2 Like, why is it so and so dangerous on top of that?

Speaker 1 It's very dangerous. And I mean, I think that's the thing that it's obviously obviously an endurance event.

Speaker 2 Obviously.

Speaker 1 It's three weeks. It's over 2,000 miles.
It's every day.

Speaker 1 There are two rest days, but it's, it's, you know, the, it's, recovery is difficult, but there are 200 guys on the road all trying to be at the same place at the same time.

Speaker 1 So you're not just, and of course, we are on a team. We had, in my generation, we had nine riders on the team.
So we're racing against 190 other people. It's, it's hard to control that.

Speaker 1 And, you you know, the roads are technical. There's crashes.
There's mechanicals.

Speaker 1 There's a lot. Like it's a mix of endurance,

Speaker 1 sort of NASCAR because you're fighting for position all the time. Strategy, politics, right? Since you have to, the politics piece, when you think about it, if you're nine guys trying to control 200,

Speaker 1 you have to be political. You can't.
No team can control that. You're constantly trying to find allies and and friends in that Peloton.

Speaker 1 And those people that are your allies and friends on day two might be your enemies on day eight. Wow.

Speaker 1 So you're constantly trying to figure out the dynamics of this, this living thing that's going down the road known as the Peloton.

Speaker 2 And so like, what's the train? Like, how do you train for that? Like, what's the training schedule?

Speaker 2 Like, how do you, because it takes a very particular mindset person to be able to even go through the grueling training schedule. Like, do you remember what you did day in, day out?

Speaker 1 I mean, well, first of all, there's a lot of racing beforehand. Okay.

Speaker 1 So it's not, you don't just show up to the tour and say, I've trained perfectly. I mean, we would do

Speaker 1 anywhere from 40 to 60 race days before that.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 obviously a lot of training, a lot of reconnaissance.

Speaker 2 Do you have to do weight training?

Speaker 1 Cause you have to be like skinny, right? Like very small. Not a ton of strength training.

Speaker 2 So what do you, is it all endurance training?

Speaker 2 Like, do you did you do like mental mindset tricks and do you like how do you psychologically prepare for that like what is there anything on that side no no i mean we we other than being convinced i was gonna win like that no exactly but you have to you have to believe your belief system on yourself has to be so strong like that you that you actually believe that you can actually yeah I mean,

Speaker 1 not the first couple, but after I got a couple under my belt,

Speaker 1 I was pretty sure we were. I mean, look, anything can happen.

Speaker 1 You can have all these things I described, accidents, illnesses, bad luck or just bad luck, you know, caught out in a crosswind, lose five minutes. I mean, this can

Speaker 2 what made you like, I guess, what made you so much, like, this is the thing, okay, so I'm going to not beat around the bush, obviously.

Speaker 2 Like, why is it that everybody on the tour, like I, you got caught for doping, but everybody was doing it, right? So like the playing field right away.

Speaker 1 Technically, I didn't get caught, but

Speaker 2 that's another discussion. That's a whole other discussion.
But my point, my first

Speaker 1 certainly exposed, but not caught. That's true.
If that makes sense.

Speaker 2 No, explain it.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 2 because for people who don't like, who are not familiar with like my, of course, I know, but people who are like younger, who are listening, who don't really know all the details of minutiae, people would just say, yeah, Lance Armstrong got caught for doping, right?

Speaker 1 Which is, that's fine too. I mean, that's, that's, if that's, if, if that's sort of the story that, or the storyline that is, that has survived, then

Speaker 1 that's fair too. But what I was just, and I was just half joking, I mean, being caught, being caught, we obviously were tested every day.
Right, right, right.

Speaker 1 So being caught would be like you tested positive. I mean, there was none of that.

Speaker 1 It was way more complicated. It was a, it was more of a legal process.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Then

Speaker 1 it was a success of the legal system and not a success of the anti-doping system.

Speaker 2 But why do you think that you were made to be such a poster child? Like people, everybody was, my point was it such, it's so grueling, it's so horrible.

Speaker 2 I feel like the bait, it seems to me the baseline was everybody was doing it and you still were in that baseline so much better and exceeded everybody else.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't, I don't, I think that's right. And I think that that's not a popular answer, but the popular answer isn't an informed answer.
Right. The informed answer is,

Speaker 1 and this is, you know, I've talked a little about this in the past. The only people that matter, the only people that matter are the people who were in the race.
That's it.

Speaker 1 In my opinion, that's all I care about. Now, if 90% of them were yelling and screaming, you know, you know, lynch this guy, then that would suck.
But the reality is 0% of them have said that. So

Speaker 1 they're all that matter, right? The people who were in the war and in the battles and in the trenches and in the fights and were head to head, that's all that matters.

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Speaker 2 Like, what would be the one thing that you wish people knew that hasn't really that people don't realize or don't know?

Speaker 2 If there's like one piece of information that's been very misbranded in the in the media, what would it be? I mean,

Speaker 1 look,

Speaker 1 there's I'm not going to get into the details of it because I've moved on with my life and

Speaker 1 I feel like I've done a decent job moving on with my life. What I will say is that there were a few things as this legal process played out to sort of reinforce and really to dance on my grave.

Speaker 1 There were three or four taglines and PR statements made that just weren't true, right? And so that's, but whatever. I mean, it, that's what those agencies chose to do.

Speaker 1 And they're not, they're, they're simply not true. And the, again, if, if,

Speaker 1 time tells the true story here.

Speaker 1 And I'll just give an example, right? So if, if somebody says that guy right there, pointing to me, that's the biggest fraud in the history of sport. I mean, come on.

Speaker 1 That's easy to say at the time. That feels good for the other side to say, I'm sorry, that is not true, right? And I know that.
My competitors know that. My teammates know that.

Speaker 1 The people that I race as a 15-year-old professional triathlete know that. The people that I race as a 53-year-old high rocks athlete know that.

Speaker 2 So that's just, they're just jerking themselves off but hey no i think that's uh i think i think it's because i think also the biggest and best people love to see that person fall right and then rebuild like someone like you because you've had like between that as gonna

Speaker 1 i don't think they considered the rebuild i mean i don't i think i think I meant what I said. When you dance on somebody's grave, they're in the grave.
That's true. And that's what they did.

Speaker 1 And that's, that's, but, but that that I wasn't gonna stay in the grave.

Speaker 2 Well, also, you know, it's interesting. I said this to you before.

Speaker 2 It's like you, you were such, you were probably such a low place, but it didn't ever, it never really, it didn't seem like you ever got, it didn't take you into a bad place.

Speaker 1 I feel like you kept on succeeding over and over in other areas of life. Yeah, but it's been, look, it's been 12, 13 years.
That's a long time. So, so I had time.
I didn't have time

Speaker 1 to be a professional athlete again, right? Time was up for me.

Speaker 1 I was 40 years old and was banned in cycling, but I had time to be patient and to reimagine, reassess, reinvent, re-emerge in whatever way. So, I had time for that.

Speaker 1 But there was a long period, and I say long, I mean five-ish years where I was just patient and I just watched and waited and

Speaker 1 did all the things I just laid out, right? Primarily reimagining and reassessing.

Speaker 2 But even like you get cancer at 25 years old, right? And like your doc, I read that your doctor gave you like basically 20% chance of living, right? And

Speaker 2 you were that little amount, you were able to, you know, against all odds, beat that and then go on again to win.

Speaker 2 That to me says something about like your brain and your mindset and your will, I guess, overall the will is what I, was what I'm so fascinated by.

Speaker 2 Like, is that something that is just so innate in you? Like nothing can like, you're unlike, it seems like you're SER, like you are like unstoppable. Is that something that you train for?

Speaker 2 Are you just born like that? Like, can people become that if they're not that way? Because you just are who you are, right?

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 look, I, I, I,

Speaker 1 maybe,

Speaker 1 I mean, that's, that, that, all sounds good.

Speaker 2 But yeah, but how do you like you, and then you you went to win again?

Speaker 1 And you, like, even.

Speaker 1 I think some people are, are just better equipped. I was equipped to, to not quit, right? And so I didn't quit when I was diagnosed.
And I fought for my life, and I got my life back.

Speaker 1 And then I fought to win the tours, and then, and then that got, uh, that story got edited.

Speaker 2 Well, tell me about how how did you even get to, how did you be able to train like that again? Never mind.

Speaker 2 Like, people can't, people who are the healthiest ever, I can't even imagine like cycling like around the block 40 times.

Speaker 1 How do you win? The body comes back to that level.

Speaker 2 Like your cancer was all over your body, right?

Speaker 1 Like you, yeah, but then the cancer, but I mean, you clearly, clearly. But I also, I was racing sick probably, I don't know for how long, but, but long enough to,

Speaker 1 in my mind, I thought, well, God, I've been sick for, I mean, I did the Olympics in Atlanta two months before I was diagnosed. I know.
So part of me, part of me, if you're,

Speaker 1 and, and I'm just, I was just telling myself this, but I was like, wow, I've been sick for a long time. Like, just imagine when I get healthy and I get all of this stuff out of my body.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm going to be super badass then. Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what I was telling myself.

Speaker 2 And so did you do, do a lot of self-talk? Like, I want to know like the intricacies. Like, do you have to, do you talk to yourself to like push you? Do you like, what's your narrative?

Speaker 2 Like, what do you, what goes on in your brain? Like, is there a narrative? Is there like something you're saying?

Speaker 1 I don't, i'd have to i don't push myself it's been a minute since i've pushed myself like back then

Speaker 1 we trained a lot and pushed ourselves a lot and i don't do that anymore so it's but you kind of like you still are training daily yeah but not not like that i'm just i'm just i mean i do it depends if i if i ride my bike those that takes longer but if if if i train in the gym or go for a run i mean it's an hour a day it's not you know it's no i know it's not but what i'm saying like okay after you when you got diagnosed with cancer and then you beat cancer what was the process to get back to be like a champion again like what did you do what was the what was the mental i just went straight back to it didn't even no i went i mean i took a year off i took the year i was all of 1997 i didn't race so then i i just but when i went back i straight back in my my question is i think that people like are well this is what i want to know is like what i you just overall like if you are succeeding in a lot to different areas like business, you've become like a rock star.

Speaker 2 And like with Next Ventures, the cycling, like it seems like everything that you do,

Speaker 2 there is like a massive level of success. Okay.
So to me, that's, that is indicative of someone's like mindset and will and determination and ambition and all these things, right?

Speaker 2 My question is really, not even a question, but is that just something you've always been like, that's just who you are?

Speaker 2 And that's just how you like, how does somebody, is there like, is there like actionable things that people can do to become better that way?

Speaker 1 I mean, look, I grew up in a, in a, with a, a mother, a single mother, more or less a single mother that had me very young. And

Speaker 1 she overcame a lot of odds, different than my obstacles.

Speaker 1 I mean, she wasn't an athlete, but she just didn't, she never quit. Like she was constantly pushing, just trying to defy the odds, right?

Speaker 1 Whether it's, you know, having a kid at 17 years old in Dallas, Texas, right?

Speaker 1 With, you know, with no, obviously, obviously, she was in a relationship, but had never met my father. I said, but this was not an ideal situation, but she didn't care.

Speaker 1 I mean, she just, she was dead set on having me. And, and, uh, you know, we grew up poor.
And

Speaker 1 I say grew up poor. I mean, we didn't grow up.
We, at that time, we were very poor.

Speaker 1 Then she remarried. And that relationship wasn't perfect.
But she stuck, you know, she just, she's just, she's tough. She has grit.
She's overcome a lot. I do think that

Speaker 1 you either, that's just a part of my DNA, but I've also absorbed a lot of that just by having watched her as I grew up and we grew up together, right?

Speaker 1 Keep in mind, my mom was 34 years old when I graduated high school. Wow.
Wow. So I think there's a, there's a lot of that.

Speaker 1 I mean, if I look back to my diagnosis and if I look back to the last decade, I attribute a lot of that to my mother, right?

Speaker 1 Who overcame a lot of long odds, you know, to build a life for herself and to build a life for me.

Speaker 2 Would you say, what would be the one thing that people don't know about you? Was there something that you would say?

Speaker 1 Ugh, I think the, I think when people get to know me, I'm a lot goofier than people. Like, I don't take myself, I take myself seriously, but most of the time, I do not take myself very seriously.

Speaker 1 So it's like a good example, right?

Speaker 1 Is obviously my kids know me, right they're like my dad is is is a goofball would they say that about you yeah for sure for sure but my but their friends would would be like oh my god you're you know and then they get around

Speaker 1 their friend's father who's me and they're like wow this that's not what i expected like this guy's is a goof

Speaker 2 i totally know what you mean like yeah i'm way more playful and you don't take yourself seriously