Blog - Josh Spector

Lake Placid Training Trip – Day 3

Day 3 in Lake Placid was another good one. The Lake Placid Marathon started at 8AM and I wanted to get out before the crowds. So, I got up early and took off for my run. It was a sunny and hot morning without a cloud in the sky – too hot for my training…

Lake Placid Training Trip – Day 2

Alternative title: “He Gets Knocked Down, But He Gets Up Again“ After yesterday’s fall, I was pretty worried that I might be pretty sore today or that some injury I didn’t notice would start bothering me. Thankfully, I slept soundly and woke up this morning feeling pretty good. The areas on my body where my…

Lake Placid Training Trip – Day 1

An up and down (literally) day… I got up relatively early, packed up the car and made the 300 mile drive up here to Lake Placid. It was a warm, sunny, beautiful day. I got up to Lake Placid at around 2:30 and checked into my hotel – Art Devlin’s Olympic Motor Inn – which…

“Done’s”

I have to admit that I’ve been struggling to find inspiration for this blog recently. I remember when I first started writing, everything I was doing was brand new and, as I’ve written before, I saw everything I did as another item to check of my preparation list. I counted hours and miles and used…

Monthly summary – May

Here’s May: Swim: 24,212 yardsCycling (outdoors): 254.9 milesCycling (indoors): 7:30 (hours)Run: 84.6 milesStrength Training: 0 hours Approximate monthly total training time: 40:18 (hours) Weight: 164.5 pounds. I’m about three pounds down from last month and 5.5 since my March summary – not bad and those few pounds will probably help my cycling and running speed,…

Memorial Day (Training) Weekend

It took a little longer than I’d hoped, but by Friday morning I finally felt fully recovered from Harriman. With three days off since the race (Sunday, Monday and Wednesday), I felt like I really should have been recovered. I don’t remember the post-Timberman recovery; I do know that I ran the New York City…

Harryman Half Ironman Update

First, obviously, above are a few of the official race photos. (The last photo is right near the end of the run – the smile on my face might look good, but you can see the stress/strain in my shoulders and arms.) Second, you wouldn’t even begin to imagine that drama that has been going…

Endurasport New York Harryman Half Ironman

Cold. That is the best adjective to describe yesterday’s race. Cold. Cold. Cold. Oh, and throw a few “Wet”s in there as well. Yes, the weather was absolutely miserable – perhaps even worse than I’d feared. But I survived and actually raced pretty well, all things considered. I finished in 5:33:58 and ended up second…

Pre-race Jitters

The Harriman Half is in about 36 hours and I’m feeling nervous, anxious, excited and eerily relaxed, all at the same time. None of those emotions really surprise me, but I did expect that my level of excitement would be a bit higher. I’m thinking about the way I remember feeling leading into Timberman, and…

Weekend recap and Harriman Bike Course

Today I went up to Harriman State Park and checked out the bike course for Saturday’s race. The course is described as follows on the official race site: “The bike course is a difficult 14-mile loop course with 1,500 total feet of elevation gain/loss per lap.” For the 56 mile half ironman, we will obviously…