Lance Armstrong, who knows a thing or two about tough competition, got more of a challenge than he expected last year when he started listening to Christmas music on Nov 1, 2005.

"For the level of condition that I have now, that was without a doubt the hardest physical and mental thing I have ever done," the seven-time Tour de France winner said on December 20th, according to the Associated Press. "I never felt a point where I hit the wall. It was really a gradual progression of fatigue, soreness, nausea, and this pounding in my brain."

Armstrong, 35, started listening to Christmas music earlier than usual, starting on November 1st, when Detroit's 100.3 WNIC switches it’s format to all Christmas music. His goal was to listen, nonstop, all the way through to December 25 – a feat he did not accomplish, barely surviving, when someone found him quivering on the floor of Frankenmuth's, Bronner’s, in the lighting department near the registers. At the time he was found, he was clutching a hand held radio, set to WNIC and playing "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas".

The week before November 1st, Armstrong told the AP, "I've been training some, but I wouldn't call it serious. It's just something to fill a void in my life after I quit competing as a professional cyclist."

That approach may have come back to haunt him.

"I think I bit off more than I could chew. I thought it would be easier," he said on Sunday. "(My head) started to hurt somewhere near Thanksgiving, especially the right side. I could barely walk up here. I can't remember anything past the beginning of Hanukkah."