Mark Allen

Biography

No triathlete has gained the recognition or success that Mark Allen has. After competing and losing in the Ironman Triathlon Championships six times, he emerged victorious in 1989, winning the most difficult one-day sporting event in the world.

It would be the first of six Ironman victories for Allen, the last coming in 1995 at age 37, making him the oldest champion ever. He has also excelled at the Olympic distance, winning the sport`s inaugural World Championships in 1989 in Avignon, France, by more than a minute. He went undefeated in 10 trips to the Nice International Championships, and from 1988-1990 he put together a winning streak of 20 races.

Over the course of his racing career, which ended in 1996, he maintained a 90% average in top-three finishes. He was named Triathlete of the Year six times by Triathlete magazine, and in 1997 Outside magazine tabbed him The World`s Fittest Man.

Recognizing the Ironman to be a test of one's resolve as much as one's body, Mark credits his string of six Ironman victories to Brant Secunda, who is a shaman, healer and ceremonial leader in the Huichol Indian tradition from Mexico. It was Mark's studies with Brant, which he continues today, that enabled Mark to be ready to pass Ironman's test of body and soul.

His work with Brant Secunda also lead to the creation of Fit Body Fit Soul, a series of seminars that Allen and Secunda co-teach in the United States and Europe. In these retreats Mark and Brant integrate the themes of body, heart and spirit and share many of the practices for developing the power of one's body and soul that enabled Allen to win the Ironman, giving the participants a template for health, balance and well-being that they can use in all areas of life.

Mark also brings his stories of Ironman success alive in the business setting providing insight into what it takes go beyond challenges in an every changing world. He shares his keys to Ironman success to help others become champions in their personal and professional lives. His clients include Franklin Covey, Honeywell, and Lucent Technologies.

Publications

In Workouts For Working People, Ironman legends Mark Allen and Julie Moss bring you the ultimate fitness program that shows you how to get, be and stay in phenomenal shape without giving up the rest of your life. In 1997, after winning six Ironman Triathlons, Mark Allen retired from his career as a professional triathlete and joined the working world. Until then, he had never understood the challenge of finding time in the day for work, family and fitness. But as he and his wife Julie, also a professional triathlete and a new mother, learned there just never seemed to be enough hours in the day. But fortunately, because their whole life had been devoted fitness, they endeavored to find a way to stay fit within the confines of this new lifestyle. Workouts For Working People is their comprehensive recipe for fitness. They will help you define your current fitness status and determine what your fitness goals are. Then they will explain how you can go out and accomplish them!

Filled with inspiring anecdotes from their lives, this is not just a book filled with workout plans and nutritional schedules, although it the best ones available, it`s a philosophy for living that Mark and Julie practice, and have tested on others who have all had dramatic results using it.

Titles

The Art of Ironman Success:
How can we create certainty in an uncertain environment? Will we let defeat stop us or will we use it as feedback for change that to bring about ultimate victory? Where will we draw strength from when we want to quit? Are we the person our dreams demand us to be to achieve them?

These were some of the many difficult questions Mark had to answer in his 7-year journey from defeat to ultimate victory at the Hawaiian Ironman.

Accompanied by compelling race footage, Mark`s presentation incorporates strategies for dealing with change and unexpected challenge, how to come back when success seems impossible, and most certainly the importance of doing the work required of becoming a champion.