"I'd be elated with something close to 2:45," he says. (Maybe that has something to do with the fact that former cycling pro Laurent Jalabert ran the marathon in 2:55 last year?)
Armstrong says he can maintain a six-minute mile pace on shorter runs, and he figures that at about seven-minute miles he can finish the marathon in just more than three hours. "That's in the top 200 or 300 guys," he says.
(...)
The last time he ran a timed mile, he says, was a couple of years ago, when he and former fiancee Sheryl Crow were visiting her hometown in Missouri. They went to the high school track, and while Crow ran stairs, he ran a mile in a cold rain. He clocked it at 5:13.
"But I was a professional athlete then," he says. "I didn't drink margaritas every night, either."
On Thursday, it didn't take much to persuade him to try a timed mile again, this time on the quarter-mile Austin High oval track.
"Let's take bets — how fast can I do a mile?" he asks, shucking off a sweaty black T-shirt. When five minutes is suggested, he takes the challenge.
At first, it doesn't look like he's going that fast. His gait is a little stiff, his chest forward. To hit five minutes, he can't take more than 75 seconds per lap. He glances at his watch as he makes the first of four laps. "Seventy-three seconds!" he shouts as he rounds the bend. He notches 72 seconds on the second lap, and 73 on the last two, according to his watch.
His total time: 4:51."
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