Iron Wars

[Sandy]

     I love to read about athletes who work hard and overcome, who have been pivotal in the history of sport.  The new book by Matt Fitzgerald, IRON WAR Dave Scott, Mark Allen and the Greatest Race Ever Run which is about arguably the two greatest athletes to race not only Ironman but any race, does exactly that and so much more. 
     In the opening chapter Fitzgerald zeros in on the decisive moment in 1989 that the tides of racing turn and history is made.  If you are not familiar with the story of Mark and Dave don?t worry as the author goes to great lengths to outline the two men from early in their athletic lives explaining their motivations, abilities and philosophies.  Throughout this book you not only learn about each athlete, how and why they were destined to be at the starting line of the 1989 Hawaiian Ironman but you also get some interesting physiological information that explains how and why each man was able to perform the way they did.
     I found this book to be particularly interesting as I have met Dave Scott twice, finding him to be a very engaging, interesting, interested individual whom you were at ease discussing athletics with.  In no way did he make me feel like he was a superstar but rather could have been a peer in my training group.  It is perhaps with this view that I found my respect for Dave growing in direction proportion to my irritation with Mark.  While Dave was motivated by a desire to prepare to the best of his abilities, race the hardest, no excuses I found Mark to be motivated by a desire to prove himself to his father while feeling completely unworthy of his admiration.  Ultimately I found his way of finally beating Dave to the finish line to be disrespectful of the process and the sport, even though he had to take every stroke, pedal and step on his own alongside Dave.
     Canadians are well known for their comedic prowess, as great actors and singers but now thanks to this book we are stepping into the sociology/physiology arenas when the work of Mike Atkinson from Kingston and Stephen McGregor from St. Thomas is detailed.  Atkinson has defined triathlon as a ?pain community?, a mechanism that helps people push their physical boundaries farther together then they ever would individually and has identified this as the essence of the sport.  McGregor has developed tools that help demystify the human running stride; particular to this story is control entropy which is used to measure a runner?s fatigue level as well as to quantify how hard a runner is trying to resist the fatigue he?s feeling.
     Finally, the best part of this book is that it is impossible to not come away feeling motivated, invigorated and looking to set your next goal.


     At the Philadelphia Marathon Boyd Kalnay ran 2:55:03 and was joined by Allan Faulds (2:47:38) and Jutta Merilainen (2:48:08).  Scott Faulds ran the half marathon in 1:21:34.

[Jon]

I did not look up the other local racers, but when I checked Allan's results he showed as his Age Group champ - finishing 1st.  Impressive at any race, but more so at one of this size!  Nicely done Allan, congrats on a great effort.

[Newt]

Hope everyone had a good time in Philly, nice job folks.

Good work Allan, no doubt plenty of hard work was done to get there. Also if I know you,,,, as great as you had done in the race you are probably not completely happy with the results.  BTW are you going to do Boston??

Peace
Peter

[Petra]

Boyd Kalnay came in 2nd in his age group and Jutta was 3rd in her age group, 10th woman overall!
Congratulations to all!

[Allan]

Scott was 3rd in his age group in the half so the whole carload from Quinte got podium positions in our age groups,

An interesting fact about the iron war book is that both Dave Scott and Mark Allen have issued statements saying that a lot of the content is fiction and have apparently filed lawsuits against the publisher.

Pete, I was actually quite pleased with my results. I spent the fall doing a lot of miles but most of my hard workouts were pacing Rachel for 5k xc racing and not typical marathon training. I also came down with a sore throat and sinus cold a few days before the race. I decided to just go out hard and try and maintain a good pace and was through halfway in 1:20 feeling pretty good. With 6 miles to go I started getting some dizziness from my sinus issues and it felt like I had vertigo coming and going. In the last 5 miles I lost all hope of a sub-2:45 with a 6:50-7:02 miles and it took some focus to keep it going at that pace. The guy who placed second in my age group was probably bummed out since I had him by 4 minutes at 30k and he finished 6 seconds back .... I'm glad it wasn't 26.3! My recovery has been really slow so I wouldn't recommend trying to run a marathon hard when you have a head cold :)