Kona Coverage: Anne Haug flies to run course record in Hawaii

When 2019 Ironman world champion Anne Haug of Germany left T2 in Kona on Saturday, she didn’t have any pacing goals or time she was aiming to hit. Instead, she had a physical target—eventual winner Lucy Charles-Barclay, who was more than 12 minutes up the road. Haug didn’t manage to catch Charles-Barclay and steal the win, but she did pass everyone else who was in front of her on the course, moving from seventh place up to second. This was thanks to an awe-inspiring marathon split of 2:48:23—a new run course record that propelled her to a 8:27:33 finish. After a third-place finish last year both in St. George and Kona, a third-place finish in 2018, and her win in 2019, Haug has finished on the podium every time she’s race in Kona and has a full collection of gold, silver and bronze world championship medals.

Haug said her swim (a 54:10 split that put her in 17th out of the water) was a great start to the day.

“I was on Lisa Norden’s feet,” she said in a post-race interview. “I was in perfect position after the swim.”

From there, she hit the bike course, where she said she struggled riding with so many other athletes.

“It was such a big group,” she said. “It was so hard not to get a penalty.”

She steered clear of any drafting or other rule infractions, however, and eventually found herself riding solo. She got off the bike in seventh place after a 4:40:23 ride, then immediately took off on the run course.

“I never look on the time, I always run by feeling,” Haug said. As it turned out, she was feeling great after her 180-kilometre ride. So great, in fact, that when she did happen to look at her pace, she got a bit worried. “In the beginning I thought, ‘Oh, I’m really quick,’ so I tried to hold myself back a bit and not to overdo it.”

A seasoned champion, Haug knows what it takes to win an Ironman—and she knows what it takes to lose one, too.

“You really have to be conservative in the beginning to make it through the marathon,” she said.

As the kilometres ticked by, though, she continued to feel good despite a consistently fast pace. Soon enough, she had climbed into podium position. Sitting in third after just 16 kilometres of running, she wasn’t ready to settle, so she kept on pushing, then chasing second-place Taylor Knibb, who was four and a half minutes ahead.

It took her another 14 kilometres, but Haug eventually caught and blew by Knibb, at which point she set her sights on the race leader, Charles-Barclay. In the end, Charles-Barclay pieced together too perfect of a race to be caught, although Haug gave it her best shot, coming within three minutes by the end.

Despite the near-miss on what could have been her second Ironman world title, Haug was in high spirits after the race.

“It was everything I could’ve given today and I’m super happy with second place,” she said. “I couldn’t have done anything better. Lucy was unbeatable.”

With files from Kevin Mackinnon.