When Kristin Richard was 25 years old, she was swept off her feet by Lance Armstrong, who at the time was a courageous cyclist battling testicular cancer. Kristin was working for an advertising and public relations firm in Austin, Texas, when she first met him. "He had just finished up his chemotherapy," she says. "He was bald and cute, and it was a business relationship at first that evolved into a friendship."
Quickly, Lance and Kristin's friendship developed into something more. Lance popped the question just months after meeting Kristin. The bride-to-be threw herself into wedding planning and admits that she "paid more attention to the rock on her left hand than to readying her heart for the journey ahead."
A year after they met, the picture-perfect couple said, "I do." Kristin quit her job, rented her house, sold her car, and moved to France with Lance so he could focus on cycling.
During their marriage, Lance went on to beat cancer and win the most illustrious bicycle race in the world, the Tour de France, four times. Kristin stayed at home and raised their three young children in the French Riviera. From the outside, it seemed like they had a glamorous, happy life...but Kristin says the fairy tale didn't end "happily ever after."
