They went head to head quite often. Dave normally seemed to have the upper hand in the early IM years. 1989 was an epic IM Hawaii with Mark Allen putting it together to win the race. He and Dave raced 'mano a mano' for the entire race until about mile 24 of the run. Then Mark put in a surge for the win. I want to say it was 8:09 or something with a 2:37 or so marathon.

In that same year Mark Allen won the inagural ITU world champs in Avignon, France (I think). Seems like to me Dave Scott focused more on the longer distances, but Mark Allen did a little bit of everything, but had something like 5 or 6 wins in Hawaii to his credit as well.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

For those wanting to learn more about the history of the sport, there are a couple of books that are good.

"Iron Will" by Mike Plant Covers the history of the Ironman and is excellent.

"Can You Make A Living Doing That?" by Brad Kearns More of the life of BK, but, it covers a lot about the non-IM early days of racing. A good read.

There is also the one by Tinley, but I haven't read it.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

1980: Dave Scott 1st, no Mark Allen

1981: niether

1982: Dave Scott 2nd, no Mark Allen

1983: Dave Scott 1st, Mark Allen 3rd

1984: Dave Scott 1st, Mark Allen 5th

1986: Dave Scott 1st, Mark Allen 2nd

1987:Dave Scott 1st, Mark Allen 2nd

1988: no Dave Scott, Mark Allen 5th

1989: Mark Allen 1st, Dave Scott 2nd

1990: Mark Allen 1st, no Dave Scott

1991: Mark Allen 1st, no Dave Scott

1992: Mark Allen 1st, no Dave Scott

1993: Mark Allen 1st, no Dave Scott

1994: Dave Scott 2nd, no Mark Allen

1995: Mark Allen 1st, no Dave Scott

1996: Dave Scott 5th, no Mark Allen

In the years that Mark Allen lost in Hawaii, he was winning everything else in sight, including 10 straight victories at the Nice Triathlon in France. He was regularily beating Dave Scott in everything, except the Hawaii Ironman. It wasn't until 1989 when Mark shadowed Dave for nearly the whole race, and then left in in the final two miles for his victory that he broke through. That year, Mark and Dave recorded the still standing fastest two marathon splits at Hawaii, 2:40:04 and 2:41:03.

Mark Allen had speed in all three disciplines. Dave Scott's strength was his strength, both physical and mental.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

Mike,

Great summary.

Mark Allan was true all-arounder for much of his career winning at all distances at the world class level. It was only in the final years that he focused exclusivly on Hawaii and that's when he dominated there. Dave Scott on the other hand,seemed to focus through out his career on Hawaii. I can't seem to recall a major race of significance shorter than Ironman that Dave Scott won. Others please chime in if they know of any.

I find it interesting that no one has really come close to the run times that Dave and Mark clocked during that historic and epic battle at IMH in 1989. I remember seeing them running shoulder to shoulder heading back into town as I headed out to the turn around in my first Ironman and it really did look like they were flying!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Not to nitpick, but there were two races in 1982. The October race Dave Scott won. Not sure about Mark Allen. I knew something was off when Dave had only five wins in your list. I knew he had six total.

Dave has the pro record for the River Cities Sprint(New Course)in Shreveport, LA. An 18 year old Lance Armstong has the old course record about a minute faster than Dave.

Bob Sigerson

are you forgetting about Luc Van Lierde? He ran 2:41:xx chasing down Hellriegel in '96

correct you are,

February 1982: Scott Tinley 1st, Dave Scott 2nd, Jeff Tinley 3rd

October 1982: Dave Scott 1st, Scott Tinley 2nd and Jeff Tinley 3rd

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

Top 10 Marathon times at Hawaii:

Mark Allen (1989) 2:40:04

Dave Scott (1989) 2:41:03

Luc Van Lierde (1996) 2:41:48

Olivier Bernhard (1999) 2:41:57

Mark Allen (1995) 2:42:09

Mark Allen (1991) 2:42:09

Mark Allen (1992) 2:42:18

Luc Van Lierde (1999) 2:42:46

Lothar Leder (1998) 2:44:58

Dave Scott (1996) 2:45:20

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

all on dave. mark is great but i like daves more blue collar approach. both worth worshiping.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

not about the topic, but can somebody tell me what the fastet marathon in an ironman-race ever is ? thanks.

think it's bustos in 2h34' at IMC...

reid went 2h35' in austria, but my friend Olaf Sabatschus went second there that year and said it was nearly 2km short on the run as he run 2h40'.

LVL ran 2h36' in Roth, 1997.

I was about 3 miles into the run at Nice in '91 and Mark Allen passed me going the other way to record a run split of 1 hr 48 mins, if my memory serves me well, but I can't remember if it was a 30km or 32km run that year as I was hallucinating quite badly by that stage and almost asked a gendarme to shoot me at the turnaround to put me out of my misery. Anyway, I've never seen anyone run so fast and look so comfortable and I've never really forgiven him for it. What a total bummer to think that the guy will finish within the next 15 minutes and you've still got 17 miles to go before you can crack open a few cold ones. My pre-race diet of Coq au Vin and Salade Nicoise washed down by liberal helpings of Muscadet and Mouton Cadet probably didn't help things, but the culinary delights of Nice's charming Old Town are hard to resist by someone of my limited resolve and athletic ability.

Anyway, to add some more verbiage to my ramblings, don't you think it's great that the sport of triathlon lets mere mortals compete in the same race with the likes of Allen, Dave Scott, Mike Pigg, Rob Barel, Yves Cordier, Scott Tinley, etc.? Absolutely bloody marvellous. I love it.

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Put the bunny back in the box.

Check out this link for some background on Dave...

http://vnews.ironmanlive.com/...pstories/1052239554/

And this one is the Triathlete Mag article on the "Ironwar" recently republished on Ironmanlive's website...

http://vnews.ironmanlive.com/vnews//1049217578

Those two are amazing. Allen once said that Dave raced with confidence while he raced with calm.

I've always wondered about the Mar. splits pre-chip. The top Marathon times given at Hawaii for Allen and Scott are in my opinion actually too slow. I raced that year and I am convinced that the Mar. split INCLUDED the transition from Bike to Run. I distinctly recall (and recorded in my diary) a Mar. split from the point of exiting the tent to the run course as about 3 minutes faster than the time given in the results. No transition times were taken. Hence, I believe those guys (in pre-chip years) were actually going about 1-2 minutse faster (Pros always have faster T times). I know that the official IM office response to this is that the Mar. split does not include transition but I think it does from personal experience.

Allen vs. Scott: Scott used to beat Allen's brains out all the way up to '89. Allen would win every other race, but Scott had his number at Hawaii. Scott was also the pioneer of hard pace racing at IM. He showed us the way to believing that the IM could actually be RACED. Once Allen went through years of purgatory over there, he figuired it out for himself. From '89 on, Allen was the man, and put down the most impressive record of actual time performances yet seen, namely 6 wins, 5 in a row and 3 sub 8:10's. Even Scott could not say that. However, Scott made a comeback at 40 in '94 after a5 year hiatus and placed 2nd. Then again in '96 he came 5th with a 2:45 Mar. split. Amazing. It was sad to see him dnf at age 47 in '01.

Scott Tinley needs more credit in my O. He was early and stayed late. 20 Hawaii's including 2 wins, 4 seconds, 2 thirds, 12 times in the the top 6!

Along the lines of the sport being awesome due to being able to compete alongside the top pros ..... On my long run this morning we were discussing this and my training buddy who did IMC in 2001 said that not only do we get to compete with them that with 5 minutes to the swim start they announced on the PA that someone had misplaced their goggles and wanted to know if anyone had any spares and the assistance for this poor goggleless age-grouper came from today's Ironman Switzerland winner Olivier Bernhard who passed on a spare set to help out. Just another reason why this sports really is awesome.

Indeed, Thank you.

Mike P. has summed up elsewhere on the thread the top marathon run times. Thanks Mike!

I know that the run splits are heavily dependant on the conditions of the day - wind, heat etc. . - or the competition, but other than VanLierde and Leder's runs, there has been no improvement in the past 10 years. I have heard Dave Scott say that with respect, he is somewhat dismayed that the current crop of top guys are not running faster. He feels there is room for improvement there.

This is not really a fair comparison, but I'll throw it out there anyway - look how much the World Best for the marathon has dropped( for both men and women) in the past 10 - 15 years. Overall, Ironman triathlon performances, run splits included, have stagnated. The top people are still training/racing hard and doing a great job, but we have not had a huge peformance break-through for some time.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

"The top people are still training/racing hard and doing a great job, but we have not had a huge peformance break-through for some time."

What about the 8 hour barrier being broken a few years ago? I would say that constitutes a performace breakthrough.

Also regarding the lack of faster run times, I think everybody most guys are biking harder now. It's hard to run fast AND bike fast.

And yet another consideration is the talent of Scott and Allen. These guys were like Merckx. It's not fair to expect every generation of triathlete to get faster and faster. There are only a handful of cyclists who have beaten Merckx's hour record and there are only a handful of triathletes who will eclipse Scott's performances in the next 20 years.

John,

Good points.

Part of the issue with the slower times overall at Hawaii is that the race has become more strategic and as you have pointed out the top athletes need to be very balanced beween bike AND run. The success of both Tim DeBoom and Peter Reid at IMH over the past few years has not been about blazing fast bike or run splits, but being well positioned at the end of the bike to then take advantage of that position on the run to spring-board to a win or top placing.

Agree that Allan and Scott were the type of athletes that come along once every generation and that we may have to wait a few more years until we see their likes again.

It could also be a bit of an optical illusion. IM race winning times dropped preciptioiusly through the 1980's during the sports early developmental years. Since then the rate of improvemnet has slowed down. However, we do know significantly more about how to train for triathlon now than we did 10 years ago. Scott et al, were really breaking completely new ground in training AND racing.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog