an insomniac's thought about cycling

It’s so hot in our bedroom at the moment, and Philippa is so fidgety and hormonal and warm, that sleep and Rory have become distant cousins, rather than comfortable bedfellows. I learnt long ago that when insomnia strikes the worst reaction is to lay there hoping and praying for shuteye. The correct thing to do is change your location and do something distracting. So at 3am this morning I found myself on the sofa, watching an overnight re-run of the latest stage of the Tour de France. For a while I toyed with the idea of planning a charity version of the race that, with a bit of training, I might be able to complete myself. Then I tried to switch that bit of my brain off and just concentrate on watching the riders at work. Trouble is, like most of the people that follow cycling I suspect, I was on tenterhooks waiting for them to have a massive pile-up and lose some skin on the road, so that made me feel more active and therefore even less sleepy than before.

Then a thought popped in my head that took my attention away from both the highlights I was watching and fact that I was awake and shouldn’t be. That thought was:

‘I wonder if Lance Armstrong thinks it was all worth it?’

He is now – let’s be honest – one of the most hated people on the planet. He drove himself on to ridiculous success by using every and all available methods – legal and illegal, moral and immoral – before suffering one of the biggest falls from grace ever endured by anyone. I suppose Tiger Woods came close, but his indiscretions – admittedly repugnant and unforgivable – were in his personal life, not his professional life. He hadn’t cheated an entire generation of competitors and defrauded sponsors and permanently damaged the public perception on every single participant in his sport forever. His achievements prior to his downfall can still be viewed as incredible. But Armstrong? Officially now he has never won anything, with all his yellow jerseys and triumphs and victories having been unceremoniously wiped from the records.

So I wonder if he thinks it was all worth it?

He is now vilified and ostracised and has been subject to swathes of vitriolic abuse, but before that he had about 10 years of being worshipped, revered and adored. His plan worked. He did what it took to get to the top and enjoyed all the benefits it brought. So is the pain and derision of the present a small price to pay for the decade or so of glory?  Is he able to internally bask in the memories of those days, or do they strike him as meaningless? I suppose it depends on how contrite he really feels, but no-one can be sure except Lance himself.

By the time I’d run all that through my head a few times it was 6am and daylight.

I might start taking sleeping pills.

RC 25-7-18