I will never forget the day I sat on my couch watching Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah. I felt like he reached through the screen and punched me in the gut. I actually felt nauseous watching him tell the world that he did lie to us. That all of those wins were aided by performance enhancing drugs. Even now as I type this I can not type "all those wins were because of PEDs". Most people can and do say that. Look at the last Tour he did, he finished in the 20s clean. How could it not have been the PEDs? For 7 years starting in July and going until about March, I would defend a man I never met, never spoke to on the phone, never even got within a 1000 miles of. To see an American not only win the Tour de France but dominate it the way he did or dominate any European sport was everything to me. I would defend him by saying, his heart was bigger, his VO2 Max was more than anyone else, he kept his strength and endurance but lost the weight with chemo so he was more efficient. I used anything and everything I heard or read to defend the man that I looked up to, that was an inspiration to many many people around the whole world. So as I sat last night and saw that The Armstrong Lie was on TV, I had many mixed emotions. I saw that it has been on demand for a couple of weeks and I knew I wanted to see it, but couldn't bring myself to watch it. To me if I didn't see it and hear him talk about using, it never happened still. If you don't talk about it, it never happens right? But I decided to watch it and started in about the middle of it. The emotion of betrayal hit me again over and over and still so very strong that it surprised me. Why after all this time does this man have this impact on me. I tried to explain how I could look on 1 person with such hurt and admiration at the same time. The only thing that I can say to explain how I can is, when you take the side, defend, yell for, scream for something or someone for that many years and that many months each of those years you become emotionally invested and attached.
I don't know why I decided to write this. To put down how I feel now so long after the truth came out. Maybe it will make me see how ridiculous I am being holding on to my believe in him, what type of person he is. But even as I type this I have to stop myself from deleting the bad things I am saying. But the same time, I wish I could walk up to him and punch him in the stomach as say "that is what it feels like, that is what you did to this fan, this defender of you, this supporter." Maybe it is the far distance off chance that he will see it and just see that there are still people out there that wants to see him succeed and compete and prove but they are also at the same time feels like they were personally hurt and affected by his lies.
That is all just a inside to me and my thoughts.
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