“Every Second Counts” is another autobiography of superstar super bicyclist Lance Armstrong. As suggested by the title, the book focuses on his bicycle racing career, picking up with his second Tour de France victory and continuing to his fifth consecutive win. There is another, perhaps even more compelling, layer and message to his story that is brought out in this book. While not as terse, in many ways, Armstrong’s book reminds me of “Book of Five Rings”. While Musashi wrote of timing being everything, Armstrong shows is it is focus that is everything.

In racing, it is true that every second counts. What Armstrong tells us, and shows by way of example, every second we are alive counts and we must focus on what is important to us. He tries to give equal time to recounting the joys of being a family man and bicycle racing. In a poignantly telling scene, Armstrong takes the newcomer Floyd Landis aside and tells him that if he is to be a good cyclist, he has to decide that is what he wants to do and focus on riding, not his personal problems. If Landis had listened better, history may have painted Landis a brighter future.

While never spelled out for us, Lance takes his own advice and places his cycling career above his family and focuses on that. While he seemingly swells with pride in describing the antics of his son, read the words a little closer. Lance is really basking in his son’s adoration. Read the other exploits a little closer and pay attention to the detail. Lance is caught up in one thing only: winning as many Tour de France races as he can. Ultimately, this is the cause of his separation from his wife, the woman that stayed with him through his cancer, even though they were not married at that point in his life.

Lance Armstrong also comes across as supremely arrogant. A lot of paper could have been saved if he simply said, “I am Lance Armstrong, I’ve won all these bicycle races and I can do whatever I what”. That is what the book boils down to. I will not try to take anything away from his Tour de France accomplishments, they are an amazing feat that will probably be in the record books for a long time, but he shows us just how full of himself he feels.

Despite this, I did enjoy the behind the scenes look at the Tour. You also have to give the man credit for living true to his word. He decided to make his cycling career his goal and gave up his family to do it. That is the ultimate message of this book: set your goal, totally commit yourself to it and make every second count towards that goal. I guess that’s where Armstrong and I part company. I feel family is more important. That is where I make every second count. ( )

Inspirational story of a true hero. Armstrong overcomes both physical and mental trials in breaking cycling records that I don't believe will ever be matched ( )

I enjoyed this, but not nearly as much as It's Not about the Bike. ( )

We all know what Lance did these last five years. We all kind of sort of know about his failures, the Olympics, his failure of his marriage. What we did not know is that Lance was evolving into a thoughtful and introspective human being. This book isn't about the bike either. It is about life, it is about teams, it is about competition, it is about living. Most bike enthousiasts probably won't like this book because Armstrong and Jenkins did not go into the minutiae of training, racing, and the grueling pace of the Tour. What they did accomplish is to follow Lance along in his thought process and his reaction to the amazing things that have happened to him since he started winning the Tour de France consecuetively and deal with his reaction to these events.
I enjoyed the book thoroughly, as a coach looking for motivational material, as a person who is searching for meaning, as sportsman looking for people who understands competition and honor.

I would recommend this book to any thinking person who is not looking for a quicky celebrity bios, because you would be disappointed with this book. If you are looking for blunt, intelligent, sometimes funny, sometimes philosophical inquiries into a life, then this book is for you. ( )