Our fellow flamefanner, Josh Cox is running the PF Chang's marathon on Sunday and attempting to set a new personal record and win the race. As if that wasn't tough enough, he is going to continue on the the Arizona State track and tack on another 5 miles in an attempt to set the American record or even the world record at 50k (roughly 31 miles).
Yeah I origunally was hoping Josh would be here in Houston this weekend along with Ryan Hall and a lot of the world's elite marathoners for the US National Half Marathon as well as the Chevron Houston marathon.
It would be great to see Josh set the new record in Tempe.
Posted: January 17th, 2009, 6:47 pm
by 01LUGrad
According to Facebook, Josh's wife will be updating live from the press truck tomorrow via twitter.
7:40 am start in AZ...you do the math for your own time zone.
I believe Phoenix is one of those cities that is Pacific some time sof year and Mountain others. But I'll be checking Twitter in the morning between services.
Posted: January 18th, 2009, 1:43 pm
by 01LUGrad
Josh set a new American record today!!! 2:47:16.
I followed as much of the race as I could. It sounded like he was really trying for the WR, but things kinda fell apart over the last 8 miles or so.
That brings our total flamefans.com American record-holder list to exaclty ONE.
Congrats Josh!
Posted: January 18th, 2009, 4:08 pm
by Sly Fox
Bigtime congratulations! It is tough to have everything come together perfectly (i.e. conditions and competitors pushing you) to capture a world record. But Josh certainly did himself and the rest of us in the LU alumni family proud.
Josh was 10 minutes behind the winner at the end of the marathon. Considering the fact that he threw up 6 times, can we say it was a "gutsy effort"?
Not to make light of Josh's accomplishment, but the world best in the 50 K is 2:43:58, and is held by Thompson Magwana of South Africa, set Feb. 4, 1988. A quick google search seems to indicate this record was his lone claim to fame, and it has stood for 20 years. Let's face it, there aren't any elite competitions held at this distance, making the record holder more the answer to a trivia question than anything.
Posted: January 18th, 2009, 7:29 pm
by 01LUGrad
olldflame wrote: Let's face it, there aren't any elite competitions held at this distance, making the record holder more the answer to a trivia question than anything.
I have this funny feeling that the ultra distances (50k and up) will become more popular as time goes on. It used to be that running a 1/2 marathon or marathon were the benchmarks serious runners strived for. Now, with the influx of charity events run by turtle-slow hobby joggers, I think we will see the real runners attempting longer distances in the future. I could be wrong, but that's just my feeling.
Either way, an American record is an American record no matter how you look at it. I'd sure take one!
