Iron War by Matt Fitzgerald recounts the fabled Ironman world championship battle between triathlete legends Dave Scott and Mark Allen. But it was interesting to read about some of the approaches to training and endurance racing that the book describes. Fitzgerald opens [ Iron War ] in the final leg of the race, but before revealing the outcome, he takes readers through the lives of these two amazing endurance athletes, their training, their mind-sets, their rivalry, their mutual respect.

Trying to escape the malaise of the comfortable modern life, Iron Man has drawn hundreds of thousands of participants from around the globe.A compelling read for any fan of endurance racing, especially interesting as they were still figuring out optimal nutrition, gear, and clothing at the time. I grew up hearing about the triathlon legends of the day—Dave Scott, Mark Allen, Scott Tinley—these guys were my dad’s heroes. The book also offers lessons on breaking down ambitious goals into manageable pieces, making it an invaluable resource for anyone looking to achieve great things. The premise of this book is that the greatest race ever - not just triathlon race, but any kind of race - was an Ironman competition in the late 80s between Dave Scott and Mark Allen. Any one who thinks that can train for this event, should really read the description of the course, weather, and the insurmountable pain one must endure to just keep one foot moving in front of the other.

It generated a level of interest far beyond the circle of diehard fans who followed this tiny niche sport back then: Scott and Allen weren’t just rivals on the race course. The 1989 Ironman World Championship is widely considered the most epic race in Ironman history, if not all of endurance sport.I carry these flaws, these scars, these failures, these moments of self-loathing, these periods of sorrow and depression, in a sort of mental hope chest. Really, I work in IT and I've heard computer text-to-speech programs with more emotion during dialog than this loser. Reading about how they both pushed themselves hard and through the pain that endurance training and racing brings was very interesting, especially how much of it is mental. They were annoyed that Fitzgerald attributed things to them they didn't believe were true but then they had refused him access to the very inner thoughts he had to instead invent. Scott was in fact dominant in the annual Iron Man championships held in Hawaii from 1980 to 1988 winning six out of ten races and finishing second in one of the two 1982 editions, often finishing 20 minutes ahead of his nearest competitor.

For over a decade, Dave Scott and Mark Allen were locked in one of the fiercest rivalries sport has ever known. When I trained, I was maniacal and when I took breaks there wasn’t a compromise of shortened or easier days—I just stopped.For students of the sport and fans of its history, it is perhaps the most famous and most talked-about Ironman race. I agree that starting in medias res, AKA the searing Hawaiian sun, as these two titans of the sport duel it out one last time was the right place to start. com , "There couldn't be two more divergent individuals in a single sport than Dave Scott and Mark Allen. Matt is the author of Race Weight, one of my all time favorite nutrition books (Main principle: Eat real, whole food.