Winner of first “Top Chef Canada” competes in first Ironman in Nice
Four years ago Dale Mackay couldn't swim and smoked over a pack of cigarettes a day. Now he's preparing for the Ironman World Championship
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Kevin Mackinnon
Eight weeks ago Dale Mackay, a celebrity chef known for his television appearances and restaurants, was sitting in his cabin when he got a message from Ironman. Would he like the chance to compete at the Ironman World Championship? It didn’t take long for him to get back to Ironman with an enthusiastic “yes.”
Before winning the first season of “Top Chef Canada,” Mackay had spent a decade working as a chef around the world, spending time in the kitchens of Gordon Ramsey (another celebrity chef who has competed at the Ironman World Championship) and Daniel Boulud. Since taking that “Top Chef” title in 2011, Mackay has opened five award-winning restaurants in Saskatchewan.
Even though he was never an athlete, Mackay has a competitive streak – he has also appeared on the “Iron Chef Gauntlet,” “Fire Masters,” and “Wall of Chefs” television shows.
While he’s competed in half-distance and shorter triathlons, this will be Mackay’s first go at a full-distance race. As he ramped up his training for the event here in Nice, he also had to juggle a busy schedule that included opening a new restaurant.
“It’s been a pretty chaotic eight weeks,” he said in an interview earlier this week.
So why did he decide to accept the invitation to the race here in Nice? It wasn’t just so he could try to beat his former mentor Ramsey’s Ironman time, although that is a goal.
“Any time something gets me a little bit nervous in life, I immediately go for it,” he said. “That’s why I’m here.”
While work as a chef doesn’t intuitively seem to lend itself to Ironman training, Mackay has embraced his new triathlon lifestyle.
“When you find something that makes your life better, you can fit it in,” he said. “That’s what I’ve done with triathlon. I get up earlier, I go to bed earlier, I take my nutrition so much more serious. I’m at the point in my career where I have the ability not to be the head chef who has to be there until 12 at night. I don’t think I could have done this 10 years ago.”
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COVID energy
It was the pandemic that spurred Mackay to look for an athletic challenge.
“I’ve always had so much energy,” he said. “This all started during COVID when restaurants were partially shut down. I had too much energy and I just couldn’t sleep, so I started doing triathlon. I needed something big, I needed a big, big goal. I didn’t know how to swim and I’d never biked or ran, so if I could do an Ironman, that would be a pretty big goal.”
His girlfriend taught him to swim, he started running and bought a mountain bike. The sport quickly became addictive, “more of a lifestyle,” and he was off, graduating to a road bike and his first triathlon. In the end, Mackay says there’s a lot of similarities between being a good chef and a good triathlete.
“I think being a chef, the way that I was trained … has automatically put me in a good position for triathlon,” he said. “It’s all about the training and the diligence. Are you going to do every minute of that workout? Are you going to skip a step? You’re only going to get a perfect dish by putting in all those steps.”
“I worked for Gordon Ramsay and he taught us to take as many variables out of the equation as possible to be perfect,” Mackay continued. “There’s always a reason why you do everything. It’s the same in triathlon.”
Mackay will certainly have his work cut out here in Nice – there are no mountains (heck, there are hardly any hills) at home in Saskatoon – but he’ll certainly be gunning to beat Ramsay’s 14:04 finish time from Kona.
Just finishing, though, will mark the culmination of his “big, big goal.” Odds are he’ll be making another one that includes swimming, biking and running either Sunday night or Monday morning.
Finish
Mackay got through the tough day in Nice in 13:16:51, completing the swim in 1:12:34, the bike in 7:10:45 and the run in 4:27:13.
