Blog - Josh Spector

Monthly Summary – April 2012

Here’s April: Swim: 2,100 metersCycling (outdoors): 104.2 milesCycling (indoors): 3:30 (hours)Run: 180.4 milesStrength Training/Yoga: 1 session Approximate monthly total training time: 39 hours Weight: ?? After a pretty weak second half of March while I physically and mentally recovered from the marathon, I started back in on training in April. The question – now that…

Change in Plans

After a few weeks of driving myself crazy thinking about it – back and forth and back and forth (that’s just how I roll), I finally made the decision and dropped out of Honu 70.3. Today was the deadline to withdraw from the race and get a refund of a relatively small portion of the…

2012 LA Marathon – Race Report

It’s been nearly three weeks since the LA Marathon. Is there a time limit on writing race reports? If so, 18 days is probably past it. Anyway, since it’s my blog, I can make the rules. The marathon was hard, and humbling. My 3:11:08 was a two-minute PR and good enough for 274th overall (out…

Monthly Summary – March 2012

(photo by Genaro Molina, LA Times) I’d been building up to March 18 for a few months. (I probably hadn’t been “building up” to it for long enough, but that’s a story for a race report that I still haven’t written!) Then, it came and went really quickly. Any other training I did during March…

3:11:08

2012 LA Marathon is done! My official finishing time was 3:11:08, exactly a two minute PR (3:13:08 at the NYC Marathon in 2006). It wasn’t as fast as I’d planned or wanted, but I’m (getting) happy about it. As a brief summary, I ran a fast first half, but I was suffering by mile 8…

Final Pre-Race Thoughts

With the nasty conditions during last year’s LA Marathon still fresh in everyone’s memory, Facebook, Twitter and running email groups have been all abuzz about the weather for tomorrow’s marathon. All week, the forecast had been calling for a wet, cool and windy weekend. For today at least, the weatherpeople were right. And that forecast…

LA Marathon – Expo and Race Day Athlete Tracking

All checked in and ready to go. LA Marathon here we go! I went to the Expo today and picked up my race packet (bib number 10537) and walked around a bit to see if there was anything I needed to buy (a few gels and a couple pairs of Balega socks was the extent…

Final Taper Week

It’s tough to complain about tapering when that was my sunset last night and this is my view right now… We’re out of town this week, enjoying a little R&R with the family. The weather’s been beautiful and the trip has been super relaxing, with days consumed by reading, swimming, ping pong matches, eating and…

Monthly Summary – February 2012

Here’s February: Swim: 8,100 metersCycling (outdoors): 126.2 milesCycling (indoors): 0:30 (hours)Run: 250.4 milesStrength Training/Yoga: 7 sessions Approximate monthly total training/racing time: 54.25 hours Weight: mid-150s? February was all about finally trying to kick it into gear to get ready for the LA Marathon. I’m happy with my 250 mile month, especially since I did get…

Going According to Plan

I signed up for the L.A. Marathon with a fair amount of apprehension. I knew I had a great base (that’s gotta be on all the “Shit Ultrarunners Say” videos), but in between finishing The North Face 50 on December 3 and about the middle of January, my weekly mileage and my motivation had been much…