Prior to the first Timex Ironman Watch being released in 1986, finding a good watch for swim, bike and run training and racing was a challenge. It’s hard to imagine how long it would take to complete all those swim tests now with anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 competitors at the race! People gave up their Casio watches to get the new Timex Ironman In 1983, before the first “Ultra” triathlon in Penticton, all 24 competitors were subjected to a swim test to make sure they could complete the 3.8 km swim. Races did swim tests before people could start He would go on to win the race five more times to tie Scott’s record of six Ironman World Championship titles. Allen seemed to be able to win everywhere in the world other than Kona until the famous “Iron War” in 1989, when he finally managed to beat Scott. Turns out that the huge lead he’d had over Dave Scott the last time I’d seen them on the Queen K would evaporate and he’d end up finishing second. She figured it was a sign of how dehydrated I was and helped me to the medical tent, where I ended up getting a couple of IVs on a cot next to Allen. When I came across the finish line in Kona 1n 1987, I asked my wife how much Mark won the race by. According to this story from the San Diego Union, Jim Lampley said the finish was “perhaps the most dramatic moment in the history of Wide World.” Can you remember where you were when that footage on Feb. 1982 Ironman World Championship, which many attribute to the surge in race entries we saw in the sport over the next few years. Timothy Noakes, who was previously behind the scientific research that led to the High-Carb paradigm for endurance athletes. Perhaps the most intriguing reason to give the Maffetone Method a try is the story of Dr. Maffetone that describes Allen’s resurgence in the sport. Millions of North Americans watched the coverage of the Feb. Endurance Planet has a great interview with both Mark Allen and Dr. Moss’ determination to get to the finish line inspired so many people to try the sport.

Unless you were a triathlete in the 1980s its hard to explain just how dramatic an effect the dramatic coverage on ABC’s Wide World of Sports had on people.

Once Canada’s Andrew MacNaughton won the 1987 Crawfishman Triathlon over Mike Pigg using a set of Lennon’s DH bars, triathlon bikes would change dramatically! You can remember exactly where you were when ABC showed Julie Moss crawling to the line My “funny” bike was definitely an oddity in transition areas, though – for the most part triathletes at the time used regular road bikes with regular road bars. These were the days before Boone Lennon from Scott developed the Scott DH bars that would revolutionize the sport. It was so cool because that was the type of bike we saw the world’s best cyclists use for time trials at the Tour de France. It was a Concord “funny” bike that had 650 c front and 700 c rear wheels. My first fully sponsored bike came from Racer Sportif in Toronto. For those of us who are willing to admit that we are, actually, that old, here are a few fond memories from the good ol’ days! We raced on bikes that didn’t have aero bars While the first triathlon might have taken place in San Diego in 1974, the sport really took off in the 1980s.

Iron wars ironman mark allen