"When she had me, she was up against the wall. People said her life was over."
Armstrong never met his father and relied on his mother for support. "You only have your children around for a short time," his mother told Sports Illustrated. "You better spend your time with them while you can, because then they're gone. For a long time there were just the two of us. All I did, my life, was going to work and raising my son, and I was happy to do it."
Long distance operator
Armstrong developed a relationship with John Walling, a friend of his mother. "He was high-energy all the time," Walling recalled in People Weekly. "I had to channel that energy into something positive." Walling and Armstrong's mother married in 1992.
Armstrong took up sports in fifth grade. He played football, baseball, and basketball, but he did not have the speed and coordination to be successful. Armstrong soon realized that his strength was his endurance--his ability to work out for a long time without becoming tired. He began training to become a distance runner and ran six miles a day after school.
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