Ironman World Championship and a (presumably) Great Book
>> Saturday, December 10, 2011
The Ironman World Championship coverage is going to be on NBC this afternoon at 3:30 (Central time)! Henry and I will be watching - Pharmie has to work this weekend, so we're just hanging out here at home together. I'll be paying attention to the commercials too, because some local races are going to be showcasing new ads. Huh... watching an event for the action AND for the commercials... this is really like the Super Bowl for me. (And to that, you should all be saying, "Well DUH!")
On a separate but related note, I recently got the book "Iron War" in the mail:
The 1989 Ironman® World Championship was the greatest race ever in endurance sports. In a spectacular duel that became known as the Iron War, the world's two strongest athletes raced side by side at world-record pace for a grueling 139 miles.
Driven by one of the fiercest rivalries in triathlon, Dave Scott and Mark Allen raced shoulder to shoulder through Ironman’s 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike race, and 26.2-mile marathon. After 8 punishing hours, both men would demolish the previous record—and cross the finish line a mere 58 seconds apart.
Yes please. Give me more.
I haven't started reading it yet, but I bet watching the Kona coverage today will get me "in the mood."
The book is from Velo Press, and they have a LOT of great swim / bike / run books. If you go to their website, I bet you'll find books that you've read before. Why am I mentioning Velo Press? Well, because they have a few books that I think I'll be giving away in the coming week. They'll be a PERFECT stocking stuffer for that endurance athlete on your Christmas list. So check out Velo Press and ESPECIALLY their "Triathlon" category for some great reading. No joke: I have FIVE books from their Triathlon page (that range from "how to," to inspirational, to simply funny).
Back with the winner of the Roctane Drink shortly, and stay tuned for a great book giveaway next week. Happy Kona Coverage! :)
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7 comments:
Wait a second... 139 miles? Can the editors not add or am I missing something?
Ha! I think they were just saying that was only a mile or so where they WEREN'T side-by-side... I'll let you know when I read it! :)
Ooooh I hope the IM World Champs find their way to YouTube... they are definitely not showing it on any of the major networks here in NZ.
I watched the Ironman coverage and couldn't believe they never showed the clock at the finish! 40 minute swim, 4:15-4:25 bike, record finish, but I'll have to look it up to see what the time was.
Also can't believe they showed the 80 year-old man falling four times before finishing. They really need to stop glamorizing those who shouldn't be there.
SteveQ, I'm sorry, but you need to finish a few Ironmans before you can talk about people who "shouldn't be there." He QUALIFIED to get there. You can't just say "Oh, I think I'll do Kona next month." (Well, you can if you get a celeb spot, but that's different.)
If someone can finish all 140.6 in under 17 hours, they have the right to be there, falling or not. Pros have raced to the finish by crawling before (1997).
Mark and Dave actually sued Matt Fitzgerald over this book. Apparently, they refused all of his fact checking efforts so the book is almost completely made up. As a fictional writing it's still a decent read, but none of that actually happened. I think they wanted a cut of the $$ before telling Matt what actually went down.
Steve, I did an Ironman on a whim back in the Dave Scott era (but not Kona, of course) and I've been in races where I was staggering and bleeding - and I shouldn't have been there. I phrased it badly, but I still hold that they shouldn't glamorize the human wreckage when anyone in decent condition can finish.
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