Mammoth’s running man
Meb may be the Olympian, but Farley’s the guy you see every day.
Farley Spector can be spotted running around Mammoth Lakes with a bag of recycling in all sorts of weather—he says he runs 45 or 50 miles a week and likes to keep town looking nice while he does it.
Spector, who at 63 describes himself with a grin as “young, kind of,” will have been running for 31 years come March 10. He’s completed 53 full marathons and 78 halves—and those are just the ones on the books.
“I volunteer to do the Mammoth Half Marathon,” Spector, who also volunteers at events like Mammoth Trail Days, said. “I wanted to challenge myself to volunteer rather than just competing, because I competed for 22 and a half years in running.”
He’s fast, too. When The Sheet visited Spector at his home, he displayed his multiple trophies, ribbons, medals and a meticulous log book of every race he’s ever run. He’s competed in the Boston Marathon four times and New York City twice. His best time, he said, was in the 1995 Philadelphia Marathon, where he finished in 2:49:21.
However, he said, he isn’t too concerned with finishing times. He just loves to run. “The over 330-some races I’ve done in my career, I never wore a watch. Time is in my head,” he said.
“Time is time. I’m not worried about the clock.”
Spector, who was born in Florence, South Carolina, moved to Mammoth in March of last year to spend time in the mountains after having lived in San Diego for more than a decade. Before that, he lived on the East Coast, which is where he started his running career. He said he got into running after a “miserable” 1984 backpacking trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
