Lance Armstrong's Marathon Goals

In a Runner's World interview Lance Armstrong talks about his training and his marathon goals. He's planning to run his first Boston Marathon on April 21st, and he's hoping to at least match the finish time he had in last November's New York Marathon (mid-2:40s). Then he's planning to run his third New York City Marathon in November with a time in the low 2:30s.

In the interview, Lance mentioned that he has been training around Austin's Town Lake and around his house. He said that he was tentatively planning to run the Austin Half-Marathon on Feb 17th. He must have passed since I couldn't find his name in the race results and I didn't hear any mention of him in news reports.

What's motivating him to run marathons? Here's what he said:

I have to have something that essentially forces me out the door. I can sit around for a year and do a 10-K, no problem, even a half-marathon. But the marathon is scary and intimidating enough that you can't just phone that in. You have to train.

What's motivating him to focus on performance?

The answer is that it felt good to go from 2:59 to 2:46. You know, I did that by just running more and doing a few more longer runs and so I just figured that if I could, for the 3 or 4 months before New York, if I could perhaps get a little more scientific and a little more plans with the training and then obviously incorporating long runs and factoring in diet and all those things. I think running a 5:40 pace is doable. And I think, you know, I'm kind of interested in it.

It looks like that competitive spirit that drove him to win 7 Tour de France races is driving him to not just run marathons, but to run hard. If he can do a 5:40 pace, he'll finish with a time of under 2:29. How good is that? In the 2007 Boston Marathon, there were only 44 men who finished in under 2:29. If he can accomplish that in the next New York Marathon in November, will he call it quits? Or will he take it to the next level?