Blog - Josh Spector

What a difference a week makes

My last post on the blog, posted last Tuesday, was titled “4 weeks to Boston”. Today, just five days later, it’s much more likely that I’m looking at 55 weeks until Boston. Yes, I’m nearly certain that I’m going to mail my registration card back to the BAA and ask for a deferral to run…

4 weeks to Boston

It’s been a while since I’ve “treated” you to a picture of Charlie. Sunday was a comfortably chilly early spring day at the beach in Wainscott. And we took advantage of the weather with a walk on the beach. On Saturday I did a long, hard, hilly run out there. The run went well –…

Rest week “ahhh”s

Now that I’m only writing about once a week, I put pressure on myself to write something really meaningful. Sometimes I feel like I achieve that. Sometimes, like this week, I’m not sure I’m going to get there… Training’s going well. My back is getting better and better. I actually don’t even think about it…

NYRR Colon Cancer Challenge 15K

As it turns out, I haven’t lost all my speed. Some of it is gone, sure, but I’m still here! I finished in 1:05:20, a 7:01/mile pace. It felt great to run that fast. I didn’t run a very good race technically, but this was my first race in months, so I can let some…

Is this how most people live?

It’s Saturday and I’m not training. That’s right, it’s Saturday and I have the day off. I honestly cannot remember the last time I took a Saturday off. I’m doing my first race of the year tomorrow – The New York Colon Cancer Challenge 15K – and Coach John wanted me to be well rested…

Monthly Summary – February

Here’s February: Swim: 18,350 yardsCycling (outdoors): 149.50 milesCycling (indoors): 13:00 (hours)Run: 62.0 milesStrength Training/Yoga: 7 sessions Approximate monthly total training/racing time: 40:45 hours Weight: 167 pounds This was not my best month. Nothing specific really went “wrong”, but nothing really went all that “right”, either. Even though my back has been slowly, slowly getting better,…

Mental Fortitude

One of the rules of training is that every training session should have a defined purpose – building endurance, working on form and increasing speed are some standard goals. I’ve also spent training sessions working on learning to run slowly, increasing my running foot-strike cadence and testing my nutrition plan. At this point in my…

Kona Lottery

The 2007 Ironman World Championship (Kona, Hawaii) was on NBC today. It was an amazing race with male and female first time winners (that’s Chris McCormack, the men’s winner above; there’s an amazing picture of Chrissie Welllington, the women’s champ here). So it’s an appropriate day for me to announce that I’ve entered the lottery…

Viva Mexico!

We’re back. But did we actually go away? Walking off the plane into JFK, we immediatly felt the cold and the anxiety of being back home. But it was an awesome trip. Every last bit of it: the resort, the beach, the food, the weather, our time together; awesome. We ate chips and ceviche and…

Vamanos a Mexico!

We’re off to Mexico tomorrow morning. Fun in the sun (fingers crossed), time on the beach and lots of general R&R. We’re headed to a resort near the town of Puerto Morelos, which is about 20 miles south of Cancun. It feels like the year has gotten off to a hectic and stressful start and…