After 8 punishing hours, both men would demolish the previous record—and cross the finish line a mere 58 seconds apart.

I’ll also add that if you’re a fan of the book Born to Run (which I love, not necessarily as a running gospel but because it is extremely well-written), you’ll love Iron War. Matt Fitzgerald has tried to capture the solution to the question of why human beings are willing to suffer. Both tactics were extremely effective, and both came with the personality to compliment their strategy. Matt does a decent job of describing where Mark and Dave came from and the factors that made them the great athletes they are. Each man has guarded his privacy, and husbanded his image, as we all wish we had the discipline to do.

This was pretty entertaining but after hearing some interviews with Dave Scott and Mark Allen it sounds like it's largely fictional and conjecture on behalf of the author. com "In his new book Iron War , Fitzgerald recounts in gripping detail the showdown between Mark Allen and Dave Scott. The storytelling gets into extreme omniscient detail, so it reads more like 'historical fiction' than reporting.

It is absolutely comparable to Krakauer, Bowden ( Blackhawk Down ), or Sebastian Junger ( The Perfect Storm ). I had already completed my first ironman prior to reading this but I had no idea of the real history of the sport.I found plenty of inspiration in this, even though I'm about as amateur as a triathlete can be and these guys operate at a completely different level. each starred letter is accentuated, each capital letter is spoken loudly, the double letters are drawn out and the pause. Fantastic description of the 1989 Kona Ironman, which featured an ultra-intense rivalry between two of the sport's greatest ever: Dave Scott and Mark Allen, who were shoulder-to-shoulder for virtually the entire race. I found it a little jarring at first when the author would interject these chapters about the scientific studies on the brain and endurance sports but those turned into some of the most interesting chapters too. That seems to be the lesson - you can do more than you think if you push through the pain - just don't "burn all your matches" and flame out!