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This is the story of my marriage to Lance Armstrong. I’m Gretchen, and this is our love story.
Lance and I met in college, where he was a football star on the rise at USC. He had those wide-set blue eyes that were irresistible to me, and we fell madly in love with one another. We dated for two years before getting married when Lance graduated from school. But our first year together as husband and wife wasn’t easy – it was filled with more ups than downs; but also many challenges that made us question if this marriage could actually work out.
We struggled financially throughout his education process, since he couldn’t afford to pay for tuition or books himself without any help from family members (or loans). This meant working odd jobs all around town just so we could keep up with life’s expenses.
But we made it through. And with the support of family and friends, Lance overcame his own challenges to become a champion cyclist – breaking records in races all around the world along the way. Through our marriage, I knew how he felt when he won each race: elated, relieved, but also guilty that so many people helped him get there. He wanted to make sure everyone else was successful too – not just himself!
I remember one time during a particularly hard period where we lost everything except for what we could fit into two suitcases worth of items (and even those were barely ours). We had nothing left at this point; no clothes or furniture or anything tangible. But that didn’t stop us from going out on the town with a big group of friends to celebrate. We laughed and danced, not caring that we were wearing the same clothes for days on end or had nothing in our fridge but bottles of Coke and bags of pretzels. I remember how happy Lance was when he won his last Tour de France – it felt like such an accomplishment after all those years of hard work!
In short:
-Lance’s battle with cancer led him to create Live Strong Foundation
-When they first married, their home burnt down; they went from living in Texas back to Austin where Gwen lived with her longtime boyfriend Tim McGraw (they have since split)
-Gretchen recalls one time during a particularly hard period where they were watching an episode of Oprah together
-Lance tells her: “I want to grow old with you” and she replies that they are already growing old, but the moment will always stay in her mind.
My Marriage to Lance Armstrong by Gwen Wilson – Part Two
In my previous post I talked about how our house burnt down when we first got married. It was a pretty traumatic experience for us both since we had just lived through cancer treatments and he wanted nothing more than to get back on the bike again after feeling so frail during those years. We packed up everything into storage containers, said goodbye to Texas (again) and went back home..to Austin where I grew up. My longtime boyfriend Tim McGraw and I had been together for years, but Lance was my first love. I know it sounds crazy to move back in with the man you were engaged to while being committed to another man–but we really loved each other so much that we thought if anyone could make this work, we would be able to.
The next few months were a whirlwind of activity as Lance began preparing for his comeback at age 25 after an absence of three years from competitive cycling due to cancer treatments and surgery on both knees. He started training again about six weeks before he raced his first event-the Tour DuPont bike race in Wilmington Delaware–which is where I met him when he came into my dad’s store every Saturday morning (I worked there too).
I was overjoyed to see him so healthy and again on top of the world. We talked about everything, and time just flew by as we hung out every day before he headed off for his three-hour training ride in the morning. I knew how hard Lance had worked to get back into shape after all that had happened with cancer treatment, but it didn’t seem like there were any limits–he would never stop until he hit a wall or won another Tour de France championship title which seemed inevitable at this point.
Lance raced 20 times in 1994 including winning nine races during one stretch; finished 12th overall (not bad considering where he started) with a third place finish at Paris Roubaix (definitely not bad at all). In 1995, Armstrong finished in the top three for 25 of 26 races he participated. He won 13 and also came second or third another 12 times.
It’s a moment I will never forget because it is one of those defining moments that make us who we are today. My marriage to Lance was built on trust and faith, but our relationship had been tested when Lance didn’t tell me about his relapse with cancer until after treatment; this incident made both of us even more determined to work through everything together as team mates–no matter what happened along life’s journey before or after.”
The Moment I Remember: The Story of My Marriage to Lance Armstrong gretchen wilson When I think about cheating oly), cancer was a major part of my marriage to Lance. In 1995, Armstrong finished in the top three for 25 of 26 races he participated. He won 13 and also came second or third another 12 times.
This story isn’t just mine-it belongs to all). In 1995, Armstrong finished in the top three for 25 of 26 races he participated. He won 13 and also came second or third another 12 times.
In 1996, Lance retired from racing so that I could have a chance at winning my own titles on Tour de France podiums. The year after his retirement – when we were still together but not yet married – was filled with incredible challenges as Lance struggled through cancer treatment without telling me about it; this incident made both of us even more determined to work through everything together as team mates–so much so that I followed him to the Tour de France in 199 and rode as hard for Lance on my own bike, until he could race again.
But by 2002 when we were married during our second go-round at cancer treatment with clinical trials, we had both reached a point where I didn’t know if it would be possible to keep going together without breaking apart. It was then that I realized how monumental this man’s love is–that no matter what life throws at you or challenges us with, there will always be one person who can make everything better: me.
The story of what happened next isn’t mine anymore—it belongs to all) In 2003, Armstrong won his sixth straight Tour de France title, but as he was celebrating in Paris, a lab called to say that they had found abnormal cells on his testicle. Lance endured one of the most difficult surgeries imaginable and then went back to training for the 2004 Tour—he took it slower this time so he could fully recover–and won again. The truth is that I don’t know what my life would be like without him or how any woman who has loved her husband might feel if she were in my shoes–there are too many different variables at play to come up with an answer. But there’s no doubt about which decision I made when some people told me not to marry him: The moment we got married and exchanged vows, all bets were off; I knew
