Mark Allen was officially recognised as “the fittest man on earth” and his legendary ‘iron war’ rival Dave Scott was possibly the toughest, most committed athlete ever. He changed the game.
The clash of titans between ‘The Grip’ and ‘The Man’ over 12 fascinating years in Kona Hawaii created an almost mythical story of endurance sport benchmarking.
Almost 40 years later these 2 multisport megastars still look incredible and as highly sought after coaches they share deeper wisdom than any. Sadly, media madness and brand sales marketing has contributed to modern generations believing that there are shortcuts to anything you desire.
An era of instant gratification sees countless wanna be ultra distance heroes get injured or fail miserably in a shallow quest for digital dopamine on social media.
A Comrades, Ironman or Ultra Trail finisher pic and medal is the iconic mountain top of Everest for the masses. It says I’m successful and I’m awesome - but without intimate understanding of your body and careful consideration of your life balance & listening to signs of overuse, we witness the ultimate failures. Joint replacements, heart attacks, mental breakdowns and divorce are examples of the unforgiving price of ignoring the signs.
Ultimately as we have seen over & over, life rewards resilience and discipline. They say it’s the hard yards that make the difference in the pursuit of anything worthwhile. 10 000 hours makes perfect.
But then we see many cases of over achievers taking things too far.
Dave Scott posted a video a week ago that he would have 10 hour open surgery on Monday 3 June. To quote him
"Many of you have become aware of the complications from excessive long-distance training compounding over the years and I’m certainly a testament to that over my career. My heart has taken a tremendous load over the years and now I’ve been forced to deal with some negative effects from the stress."
"More is not better" says The Man with an incredible athletic history, looking superb as ever at 70 years old. Nobody likes to see an icon of health show fragility & weakness, or worse hear that they may be setting themselves up for something similar.
The operation was successful and Mark has been emotional and empathetic towards his friend. His social media posts of well wishing have elicited lots of interesting comments from concerned athletes around the world. Much of it has centred around the debate of how much training is enough?
Our fit lifestyle evangelist & endurance lifestyle magazine editor Paul Ingpen had the rare opportunity to spend some quality time on the couch with his admitted hero Mark at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Finland. They addressed this very important subject and with the benefit of hindsight, and a huge amount of his own and coachee data, Mark was clear with his advice.
Listen to what he has to say - it could change or even save your life...