Post A # 2

Vocab
1. Catheter (78)- a flexible or rigid hollow tube employed to drain fluids from body cavities
2. Infarction (88)- an area of tissue in an organ that is dead or dying

Appeals
1. "Fabio had been a man. I was still trying to get there" (69). This passage is an emotional appeal. Lance is talking about the man Fabio Casartelli, a teammate of his. He had won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics, and was killed when descending a hill in a 1995 race. At the time Fabio died, his son was just one month old. The reader is introduced to the danger in professional biking from this quote, and feels Lance's emotional hurt as he reads this passage.
2. "It's in your lungs, it's stage three, you have no insurance, now it's in your brain" (94). His cancer was spreading, and at it's worst, Lance was given a twenty percent chance of survival. This is a logical appeal, showing the fact that the cancer had spread into Lance's brain.
3. Decimate (95)- Lance talks about how cancer will decimate one's body whether they are 500 pounds or in the best possible physical condition in their life. He's living proof. The word decimate is very loaded. He could have used other words such as kill or cripple, but I think decimate is just the right word to describe his cancer.

Quote
"I won [the 1995 race where Fabio was killed] by a minute, and I didn't feel a moment's pain" (68). There are times when someone is racing, and it almost seems that a higher power is guiding them. For example, during the 1995 race, Lance started "sprinting" 25 miles before the finish, which is usually a pretty stupid thing to do. When he did this, however, he maintained an increasing gap between him and the others, until he won the race one minute ahead of everyone else. He said, "There is no doubt in my mind that there were two riders on that bike. One was Fabio."

Theme
One theme in this section of the text is, "Don't cut corners."
"It took years of racing to build up the mind and body and character (to win the Tour de France), until a rider had logged hundreds of races and thousands of miles of road" (69). When you work every day for years, and work hard for years without giving up, then and only then do you have a chance to be the best in your sport.