Melissa Hauschildt wins ESI Ironman 70.3 Augusta Triathlon

Melissa Hauschildt is back to her winning ways in the only way she knows how. After giving second placed Emma Kate Lidbury almost two minutes head start in the swim Melissa then set about neutralising that deficit on the bike before she ran away from the field to take the win in a new course record time. Melissa’s 1:20:46 run was 6 minutes faster than the next best female and only three of the male pros ran faster.

This is the fastest 70.3 time in 2012 by a female.

Hauschildt has had an unsettled year with a foot injury that took a lot of miles out of her running this season. Today Melissa was up by around 5 minutes midway through the run according to reports and she may well have backed off in the second half to conserve her legs. “I finally got my run legs back. I went out very conservatively because even last weekend when I thought I was good to go, my legs didn’t cooperate and it was a disaster.”

This was the first race this US season where Hauschildt felt like she could run. “I was comfortable. And I had some left in the tank. I never thought I had it won till the last couple of miles because I’d lost confidence in my running after my last few races. I guess I’ve just raced myself fit. I’m now looking forward to actually getting in some good run training, getting some km’s under my belt and start building up that strong run base again. It’s been a tough year. Even though I had the all clear to run in August it was hard because I was also trying to taper for races.”

Next up for Melissa is a trip to support husband Jared who is racing as an age grouper at the World Ironman Champs in Kona.

Coming in fourth today was Anna Cleaver. The Kiwi and sometimes Sydneysider had her first solid race after having a spectacular crash on her bike in Boulder a couple of months ago. Cleaver sustained a fractured wrist in two spots amongst many other injuries.

The Kiwi is one of the fastest swimmers in the sport and she showed this today. “Going into this race I did not know what to expect. I knew my swim was not going to be up to its usual standards because of the broken hand. This was going to be a good test as to where my fitness was at across all three disciplines.”

The course certainly did not favour a swimmer given it was a downstream swim. Cleaver was determined to dominate the swim, which she did. “My swim time resembled more of a 1500m time! I am conducting wetsuit reviews for Trizone.com.au at the moment, so I race-tested one of the suits sent to us – I was impressed with it. However the conditions were hot, maybe too hot for a wetsuit.”

Cleaver maintained 3rd on the bike for most of the way and ended up 4th coming into T2. “I held on to that position for a 4th overall. In a quality field I could not have asked for more right now. I was in very good company in the top 5 and my body pulled up feeling great. I also used the race to test a few other things, including next seasons Hincapie Sportswear tri outfit. Loved it!”

“Very grateful to my friends at Hincapie Sportswear and to Nick White from Carmichael Training Systems. Two more races in the US then a big Australasian season – excited!”