As she did a week ago in Augusta, Australia’s Ellie Salthouse opened up enough of a gap starting the run to take her second win in two weeks at Ironman 70.3 Memphis today. American Jackie Hering managed to gain back a bit of time on the run, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop the Aussie from taking the win.
Salthouse led the race from start to finish, hitting T1 with a American Ali Brauer on her feet and Hering coming out of the water just over a minute behind. Brauer couldn’t hang on to Salthouse on the bike and through 50 km found herself just a couple of seconds up on Hering, but the pair were 2:46 behind the Australian. Salthouse would continue to gain time, hitting T2 with a lead of 4:43 on Hering and 4:49 on Brauer. Hering would get the gap down to about three minutes through the first half of the run, and kept gaining – the gap was less than two minutes after 18 km.
Salthouse is getting good at hanging on to a lead, though, and despite the obvious fatigue of her third half-marathon in three weeks, she made it to the line for the win in 4:12:35 after a 1:21:48 half-marathon. Hering would get the gap down to 1:09 by the end thanks to her 1:18:20 half marathon, crossing the line in 4:13:44. Brauer would round out the podium in 4:26:25.
