Lance Armstrong begins Tour de France push in California

Reporting from Sacramento -- The fifth edition of the Amgen Tour of California begins Sunday with a race from Nevada City to Sacramento set as the first of eight stages that will bring cyclists to the finish line in Thousand Oaks on May 23, but Lance Armstrong’s goal isn’t to win this title.

Instead, Armstrong, 38, hopes to begin a 50-day push that will leave him well-prepared to compete for an eighth Tour de France winner’s trophy in July.

With his preparations interrupted by a viral illness and a sense that age matters more than he hoped, Armstrong confessed to some unfamiliar insecurities during a news conference Friday that was attended by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, three-time defending champion Levi Leipheimer, defending Olympic gold medalist Fabian Cancellara and 2009 Tour de France runner-up Andy Schleck.

“We’ve had some glimpses and then maybe some false starts,” Armstrong said of his early season form. “It has not been easy or smooth. I don’t think we’re pulling the fire alarm, but now is the time the signs need to start pointing up.”

Armstrong said he felt he was in good form during the Tour of Flanders, but it was during that race that he fell ill. Ten days ago Armstrong competed in the Tour of Gila in Silver City, N.M., and the feeling wasn’t as good.

“In the Tour of Flanders,” he said, “I thought I was doing pretty good for an old man so my emotions were high. If you asked me in New Mexico when I suffered like a proverbial dog, my emotions were low.

“I still believe I can win the Tour” de France.

The 50-day push includes eight days of racing in California, another dose of competition in either the Dauphine Libere or Tour of Switzerland next month, a week of hard training in the Alps and the Pyrenees and an abstention from the relentless schedule of travel that Armstrong keeps in conjunction with his work for his Lance Armstrong Foundation.

“I’ve personally struggled to find the condition that I’d like,” Armstrong said. “I’d like to think I’m headed in the right direction. But that’s why we have this event.”

diane.pucin@latimes.com

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