This is the third of ten untold stories about the incredible moments of personal challenge and the decisions made that led to the 1989 side-by-side eight-hour battle between Dave Scott and Mark Allen. Everyone has seen accounts of the race itself. Neither Dave nor Mark have told this story in tandem. But, more importantly, no one has ever heard the details of each of their personal journeys during the year that made this an even more amazing accomplishment.

In the upcoming stories Dave and Mark will reveal their personal struggles, their daily triumphs, and the seemingly impossible challenges that brought them to this iconic clash. It’s the same journey we all take in life — if we have the courage to take the first step toward greatness.

In the one and only time Dave Scott and Mark Allen had a face off before Kona that actually matter each was testing their fitness. Both were hoping to send a message to the other about what they would be bringing to the plate later that year in October. Each knew there was always time to correct if their course had not been set right. But this one race defined what would be needed to win in Hawaii.

Scott Zagarino

Dave Scott

“Planning my 1989 year with an early season conviction to being fit and race-ready throughout the spring, summer, and leading into the World Championships in October, took a dramatic emotional shift when my wife, Anna, told me she was pregnant.

During our four years of marriage, Anna and I had talked about children. But having children was always put on hold due to my training and racing calendar. A child was certainly a secondary goal in my mind. But, if you’re not taking precautions, nature can take its course. 

After Anna checked on a home pregnancy kit in early January of ‘89, we were both convinced her due date would be sometime in August. Her early pregnancy signals were all validated by her physiological signals. This element was definitely a new development when it came to my mindset in preparation for my race season. Attending birthing classes and practicing the prescribed breathing practices of Lamaze seemed ridiculous, but I wanted to be present for Anna. I thought sitting with her in a classroom weaving through the Lamaze pre-birthing methodology demonstrated my enthusiasm, but selfishly, I needed to prepare for my season.”

Dave Scott

“My commitment to training and racing the early season races was now taking a back seat to having a child. Painting the baby’s room and buying the vitals for the newborn took time and energy. I remember when we told my folks about Anna’s pregnancy. They were extremely excited but somewhat reserved knowing my training might take a secondary position in my planning.  

Sharing my early season goals with my family and two close male friends, Mike and Pat, elicited concern that I would regress and put all of my energy into the baby. I also soon realized that the ‘male’ role in my household would be one of support — as trying to tell my wife about birthing and breastfeeding received a scowl and a stern “no thank you.” It was determined that I needed to adhere to my athletic goals.

Mike and Pat both knew my time goal for Kona. The plan I thought was truly attainable was to put together these splits: swim 50-minutes, ride 4-hours 35-minutes, and run 2-hrs 37-minutes and 30-seconds. Throw in three minutes for the two transitions and my potential yet doable time would be around 8-hours and 5-minutes. Achieving this would shatter my existing record.

In the early spring months of training, I felt my swim was stronger and this was validated with two late season one-hour time trials. When it came to the bike, my fitness said that riding 25 miles per hour (slightly faster than 40kph) was attainable.

Mark Allen

“There’s nothing like a race to test and see if something new was really working. Yes, I could hit personal bests in the low-stress environment of day-to-day workouts with my training buddies. But only in a race would I know for sure if a new training strategy was as good as it looked when the pressure of competition bore down heavily with its unrelenting ability to expose hidden flaws in my preparation. 

But to reveal the truth, the test also has to be the right race. Not all races give the chance to test the integrity of my preparation against my toughest competitors—whose presence is an essential ingredient. It takes a very special convergence of factors to reveal what needed to be discovered about my strengths and weaknesses.

The season in 1989 opened up for most of us at the St. Croix Half IRONMAN. It was in April and just about everyone I would be keeping an eye on that year was racing. Mike Pigg was on the start line. He had arguably been the dominant force in Olympic-distance racing the previous two years. I would have to figure out a way to overcome his deadly bike leg if I was going to log victories in the shorter events.

Dave Scott would be there, too. He would be without question the greatest force in the field at the IRONMAN in Hawaii if both he and I could arrive at the start line there in one piece. But St. Croix would not tell me what I needed to know about either man.

The race would be too long to reveal any deficit I had in speed. It would also be too short to unravel weaknesses that only show up after five or six hours of racing. And, as it turned out, both Dave and Mike had lousy days. Dave had crashed in training just before the race and was not at the top of his game. His performance gave me no read on his fitness. And Mike was just off that day from his normal attacking style. I won in St. Croix, but it didn’t show me what I needed to know about whether or not New Zealand had actually taken me to a level.

A real window was coming up in May. It would be at the World Cup Triathlon on the Gold Coast of Australia. The race was comprised of a 3km swim, 130km bike, and a 30km run. Dave Scott would be there, and it would be long enough to test endurance. It wasn’t Kona, but the race course was demanding enough and long enough to at least see if there were any big holes in my fitness and hopefully affirm that I was headed in the right direction for October.”

Dave Scott

“After my loss in St. Croix, my determination to show my early season fitness at the Gold Coast only heightened. Mark’s win in St. Croix did not rattle my psyche. Going into Gold Coast one week later, I felt well prepared for a longer race. 

The race distance there would be comparable to the Nice race, which Mark dominated and won ten times during the course of his career. I was aware of his splits, particularly his run speed. Even though the distance was 30k and the Ironman is 42k, he had run extremely well in Nice. I needed to be ready for the Gold Coast and be able to run much faster than I would need to in the World Championships in Kona. The opportunity was there to showcase my early season fitness on a longer race. 

I wasn’t intimidated by Mark’s ability to race a six-hour-plus race and was acutely aware of his confidence at this distance. Traveling to Australia, I knew my dismal showing at St. Croix would be just a blip in the season. I arrived in Gold Coast ready to prepare for a few days and then battle with Mark.”

Mark Allen

“Even before the Gold Coast race I knew something was different, something inside of me. In the past, tension started to build up inside of me before each race. It would start weeks out. I’d worry about every detail I needed to take care of just to get to the start line and worry about whether or not I’d forgotten something important. There was worry about whether or not I could handle a race that didn’t go well. I’d worry about trying to figure out the entire race before the gun ever went off.

The Gold Coast was different. I should have been nervous going in, but I wasn’t. I was focused but not worried. Something had shifted. It was partly because my main reason for racing that year was to just run my best races possible. Of course I wanted to win, but that was secondary. That gave me some calm. I knew my fitness had taken a dramatic shift upward. That, too, eased the nerves.

But it came down to something quite simple. In life, situations present themselves that at first seem completely impossible to deal with, situations that in the end reveal we have a lot more strength and resiliency than we ever knew. New Zealand had been like that athletically. I did training that in the past would have intimidated me, levels I avoided because I thought I was too weak to chew them off and absorb them. My training in Christchurch showed me I’d underestimated myself.

With that came a new kind of self-confidence. It wasn’t that I thought I had everything under control and that I had what it would take to be victorious in my racing. It was a self-confidence that came out of being calm and silent. And those two things came from the knowledge that no matter how difficult a race got and no matter what the result at the end of the day, it wouldn’t break my spirit. There was no longer any fear of failing. How I felt about my life was no longer at the mercy of a result. It was about embracing a steady, slow-burning strength that might bend but would never break.

I didn’t realize how early in the race I’d be given a test of my new self confidence. It came in the transition from the swim to the bike. Dave Scott had held onto the feet of the top swimmer in the field, Rick Wells from New Zealand, and exited the water well ahead of the chase pack that included me. Dave started the bike in the lead. I came out of the water in eleventh place.

I knew it was important to try to catch back up quickly, but steadily. Unfortunately, right as I pulled my bike out of the transition rack and was ready to swing my leg over the top tube, my momentum carried me backward and I slammed into a photographer who was positioned too close. The impact knocked my body into my frame and dislodged the bike pump from its mount. It was dangling sideways from the top tube. I grabbed it and instead of taking the time to put it back in place, I ripped it from my bike. I now had spares but no pump. That fleeting incident was out of my mind in about a second. I certainly wasn’t planning on getting a flat.

My attack had to start from the first pedal stroke. Unfortunately test number two happened 47-minutes into the race. You guessed it—I got a flat tire. 

I’d experienced three flats the previous year in Kona, and now in the one and only real test I’d have against Dave before Kona, I experienced another. Fortunately, some race officials were close by and threw me another pump. But the net cost in time was over 3-minutes.”

Staying focused on the race was easy because the task at hand seemed relatively small and manageable. I could wrap my mind around a 30km run with a gap of two minutes. There was a lot of pavement and time ahead. It seemed like a small thing compared to what I now felt I could handle and manage. In the past, this situation would have seemed overwhelming. Dave Scott was an incredible runner in a race this long. But the shift inside of me made me feel this challenge before me was only 5% of what I could deal with. That meant 95% of my mental space was just free to be.

By the 11km mark, about 36-minutes into my run, the gap between me and Dave had shrunk to 20-seconds. The pass did come, then the gap grew in the other direction. My final winning time was 5:26:52. Dave Scott came in second just over four-minutes later in 5:30:57. My run averaged 5:26 minutes per mile for the entire 18.6-mile run.”

Dave Scott

“As the race unfolded and I led out on the run, I was ready to go hard and fast. My legs felt decent, but Mark’s legs and lungs seem to have a new level of electricity. Unlike what I expected, he won with a phenomenal run split. 

Coming in a distant second, I still never had a doubt that our order of finishing would be turned around in October at the World Championships. Overall, I was pleased with my race. Mark undoubtedly looked at this win as a monumental step toward Kona. He had run fast at Nice, but never in Kona. 

Analyzing the race, I knew I would need to be stronger in all three disciplines for the World Championships. With several months of preparation I was confident I would be considerably faster in Kona. I also recognized that Mark would have a renewed confidence from the Gold Coast victory over me. I had to be ready. 1989 was a new year for our collective and singular confidence and the inevitable showdown.”

Mark Allen

“Dave joked after the race that I won because he was too old and I was still young (we are four years apart in age). My comeback was that I gave him a 3-minute head start because of the flat. We both knew something big between us could happen in Kona, and more likely than not it would be on the run. But for the first time in my life I wasn’t worried about it.”

Dave Scott

“I returned home wondering how my wife was doing with her pregnancy. I was torn between picking up my training or simply absorbing this new phase of life, having a baby due in August. Not having known the pregnancy was coming, I’d scheduled a major test for myself in the first week of August: IRONMAN Japan. This was going to collide with the birth of my baby and happen only two months before Kona. I wanted to cancel my participation in IRONMAN Japan. But adhering to my schedule, being truly ready for Kona, and honoring the Japanese commitment, meant I had to maintain my training momentum when I arrived home.  

The race in Japan, childbirth, and Kona all seemed daunting. Squeezing in the first two around my selfish training preparation and being ready for Mark Allen in Kona was a tall order. I didn’t know if it was possible and the looming obstacles felt overwhelming.”