Equal parts elite distance runner and humanitarian, Josh Cox has strung together an amazing list of accomplishments in his 10-year career. Now he plans to rewrite the record books in the 50K and raise money to feed and educate 1,500 kids. And you thought you were ambitious.
Flash back 25 years: A 9-year-old boy plays alone on his front lawn with a soccer ball, dribbling around invisible defenders and shooting through a pair of trash cans set up as a makeshift goal. His love for the sport has made this a regular but increasingly tedious ritual. He is starting to realize the inherent limitations of team games — that he is constantly dependent on the availability of his friends and/or the coming of the local club season. Well, for a restless, athletic boy with energy to spare, this is simply unacceptable. This scene of isolation ended up being ground zero for the decorated career of distance runner and PowerBar
® Team Elite™ veteran Josh Cox.
Present day: Josh has long since left behind turf and slide tackles, trading them in for the open road and a pair of running shoes. And when it comes to his trade, there are few who are better. Last year, at 33, Josh captured the American record in the 50K (2:47:17), despite having had a half-dozen bouts with nausea. This year, he has his sights set on bigger things, like capturing the 50K world record — which he says is definitely within reach — and becoming only the second American to win the Comrades Ultra Marathon
(www.comrades.com), a 56-mile trek between the cities of Pietermaritzburg and Durban in South Africa.
“This is a lifetime dream for me,” he says. “This race has been around since 1921 and only one American, Alberto Salazar in 1994, has ever won. Hopefully I can follow in his footsteps and win the thing.”
Flash forward: It’s difficult to envision the next act in Josh’s career. As he’ll tell you, every athlete has a shelf life. But with his comprehensive approach to preparation and recovery, he has managed to flourish at an age when many elite athletes start to lose their edge. So it’s conceivable, then, that his best years could be ahead of him. With a shot at the 2012 London Olympics looming in the back of his brain, Josh is planning on running faster, farther, and better for at least that long. And while the epilogue remains to be written, perhaps Robert Frost provides an apropos, if open-ended, denouement for Josh’s run into the record books:
“But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
Josh Cox
Birthdate: August 9, 1975
Birthplace: Jacksonville, Florida
Current residence: Mammoth Lakes, California
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 146–154 pounds
Website: www.jaycarbon.com
Q: What does it take to run a marathon, both physically and mentally?
Josh: I think it’s all in the preparation. I just responded to someone on Twitter and told them to get out the door and walk and jog for 10 minutes and gradually increase speed and distance. Where intent meets action is the first step. It helps to have a training group so you have that accountability. I love to run — really, really love it — but there are days when I wake up and I just don’t want to get out there. But if we only did things when we felt like it, we wouldn’t be very good at anything.
I’ve seen people run marathons who were only running twice a week, who did one long run and one other run a week. But the more prepared you are for the marathon, the better the experience will be. It won’t be a death march. You just have to ask yourself what you are looking to get out of it. If you’re looking to complete it, that’s one thing. If you want to be competitive, it’s another. You just have to make sure you have a reason for what you’re doing, and for everyone that’s different. For me, I just want to be faithful with the gifts God has given me.
Q: Aside from your natural physical talent for it, what draws you to distance running?
Josh: I just love the challenge. I love testing the body daily and I love to see the tangible improvement. Generally speaking, the more you run, the better you’re gonna get. It’s an interesting sport. I grew up playing soccer and wanted to play in a World Cup. But for that, I needed to get together with my friends and I had to rely on other people. With running, you’re the hero and you’re the goat, and I like that. I like the ability to lace on my shoes and go run 10 miles, no matter how long it takes me. I like the time alone, because of how connected we are through social media and cell phones. You’re always connected, and I like being able to unplug and get away, and running is the way I can do that. It’s probably saved me thousands of dollars in therapy over the years! The things that stressed me out before the run start to make sense afterwards. I love the act of it, but I love competing, not just against others but against myself. I want to see what I can get out of the human machine. We’re adding new elements in with the core workouts and the strength training and trying to nail it. You don’t nail it every day.
Q: While we’re on the topic, what do you do for strength training?
Josh: I do a lot of core work six days a week. If I’m beat up, I’ll get on the elliptical or the bike, which is just getting the heart rate up without the pounding. If you want to run fast, you need to run fast. It’s not rocket science. I don’t do a lot with my lower body as I get toward the race. When I’m running 140–180-mile weeks, I’m not in there doing box squats — I’m just trying to recover. If you have your core dialed in, the rest will take care of itself. It’s a lot of planks — traditional, side plank, extended arm planks, bird dogs. But I really enjoy lifting — probably too much. My old coach said I was too big. And whether it’s a lb of muscle or a lb of fat, you still have to carry it when you run. So whatever weight you put on, you have to be able to use it. I enjoy getting in there and messing around with the free weights, and both of my younger brothers love using the weights. I love getting in there and banging it out with them. My routine is very high-rep, lower-weight stuff. I try not to do anything that I can’t get 20 reps on. You want really lean muscles. You want to be strong but not bulky.
Q: Wait, back up — how many miles do you log in a week?
Josh: The most I’ve ever done is 188 miles in a week. It’s funny because getting ready for Comrades, I think I’m gonna be pushing that or maybe getting over that and going up toward 200. The long days are 20–30 miles at the most. When I’m training for a marathon, my longest is 26 miles. I did two 30-milers last August to try to bang up the legs and get them used to it. Comrades is 56 miles. So what it’ll be is something like 25 in the morning, then coming back and doing 15 in the afternoon.
Q: Do people ever tell you that you’re crazy for running distances that are usually considered long drives?
Josh: A lot of people don’t get it. In their mind, 10 miles is a long run and 22 miles for the day sounds insane. But I explain to them that this is my job. I don’t have to go sit at a desk 9–5. When I qualified for my first trials in 2000, my max for that buildup was 133 miles for the week, and that was tougher than running 188 because I was working, so it was really demanding. You have your day planned down to the second and you burn the candle at both ends. But I have the contracts and the great sponsors like PowerBar® that support me in this endeavor. Without them, it would be insane. Since I’ve been married, I’ve shifted the way I think about running. Not that the love isn’t there, but I approach it like this is my job — this is what I do.
Q: Has it been a tough process learning how to fuel your body for optimal performance through training and competition?
® It’s a lot of trial and error. Every athlete is an experiment of one. You have to figure out what works for you. People metabolize things at different rates. I have my long-run days every other week, and on those days I simulate race day. Everything I do is just like race day. Come race day, that’s not the time to be experimenting. You need to have it totally dialed in by then. You’d think that after 10 years, I’d have it totally dialed in, and I don’t. You can do the same thing in your next race and it doesn’t work. It’s just trial and error, and you want to take away as many variables as you can.
|
JOSH’S PRE-RACE NUTRITION |
| 1 cup coffee |
| 1 PowerBar® Performance Energy bar(1) |
| 1 bagel or 1 Eggo® waffle or 1 slice of toast |
| 1–2 glasses of water |
| 1 PowerBar® Endurance sports drink(2) |
| 1 PowerBar® Gel(3) |
|
(1) Josh’s preferred flavors are oatmeal crisp, oatmeal raisin, and cookies & cream.
(2) Josh sips this drink on his way to the event.
(3) Josh has one gel immediately before the starting gun.
Q: What do you typically eat the night before a race?
Josh: Of course, you have to carbo-load, but don’t wait until the night before. Carbs typically take 16 hours to process and be stored as glycogen. My money meal is lunch the day before. I usually go to Olive Garden® the day before. I usually stay away from meat because it takes longer to digest and because I just don’t want to mess with it — people are handling meat and preparing meat, and you don’t know what can happen. I just get pasta with marinara, bread sticks, and salad and keep it simple and do something near identical for dinner. Two nights before, I’ll get chicken and brown rice somewhere like P.F. Chang’s®. I usually try to have an earlier dinner just to get it into my system before I head to the start.
Q: How do you usually refuel after a long training session?
Josh: I usually take one of the PowerBar ProteinPlus® bars to get in some protein right after I’m done. There’s that 30–60-minute window when you’re done working out — and the sooner you get it in, the better. I’ll have a PowerBar® Recovery beverage, a PowerBar ProteinPlus bar, and even a Performance Energy bar if it’s a long run. I just start downing as many calories as I can. You get really hungry, and if you finish a run and if you don’t have something nutritious there, and if there’s a roll of Oreo® cookies, I’ll eat the roll of Oreos, which I’ve done before. I had run like 27 miles, but I didn’t bring a protein bar. I had to eat something or else I’d pass out, so I ate these Oreos rolling around at the bottom of the team van.
Q: You now have the American record in the 50K and came close to the world record. Do you plan on going after that world record again?
Josh: Tentative plan is to race Comrades and hopefully be the second American to win there. Depending on recovery, I’d come back for a fall marathon, maybe Chicago. Then, next January I’d attempt the record in the 50K. Three races between May and January is a little ambitious according to everyone I’ve talked to (laughs). If I nail it and have a good day, I’m confident I can break that 50K world record. Just trying to stay healthy and keep my nutrition right. We’ll see.
Q: What are some of the causes you’re involved in?
Josh: I do some stuff with Team In Training®: I don’t do a lot of work with them, but I come across a lot of people who do. Cancer took my dad’s life, so I’m very passionate about any kind of cancer research. I like LIVESTRONG™ and Athletes for a Cure®, but really the biggest one that I’ve worked with is Team World Vision®. You run races at any distance to raise money for impoverished communities over in Africa. For the Comrades race, there are 17 of us running as part of The Ultimate Cause (www.theultimatecause.org). We’re trying to get 1,500 kids sponsored in three different villages. It’s great because when you sponsor a kid, you’re not just sponsoring the kid — you’re really sponsoring the community around them. It’s $35 a month, which for most people here is a small investment. It’s going out to dinner one less night a month.
Unless otherwise noted, all trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A., Vevey, Switzerland. EGGO, OLIVE GARDEN, P.F. ChANG’S, OREO, TEAM IN TRAINING, LIVESTRONG, ATHLETES FOR A CURE and WORLD VISION are trademarks of their respective owners.
Rights of Usage Policy