There’s been lots of talk recently about stellar men’s half marathon times in triathlon.
Kristian Blummenfelt has started the season in breathtaking fashion by winning IRONMANs 70.3 Geelong and Oceanside thanks to 1:06 and 1:07 half marathons.
But last weekend also saw an incredible 13.1-mile performance on the women’s side which went a little bit more under the radar.
Step forward French star Leonie Periault, one of short-course triathlon’s most talented athletes.
Berlin benchmark
In triathlon terms she had a brilliantly consistent season in 2025 – seven WTCS races and she was in the top five in six of them, winning in Hamburg.
And her running story is top notch too, with multiple titles including the French Cross Country Championships.
But racing on the road in the Berlin Half Marathon last weekend she set a serious benchmark for others to follow as she was not much more than a minute outside the French national record for the distance.
She clocked 1:09:25 for the 21.1km, quite the warm up for her WTCS reappearance in Samarkand at the end of April.
Haug holds the triathlon record
That saw her finish 14th behind Ethiopia’s Likina Amebaw, with Periault the first French athlete across the line after pacing it perfectly, with all her 5km splits in the mid-16-minute range.
The French national record is 1:08:20 and should Periault ever step up to middle-distance that sort of run speed would be quite a weapon.
Obviously it would be blunted by the swim and bike but to put it into context, the quickest ever female half marathon time in a triathlon belongs to Anne Haug.
The now-retired German superstar was renowned as the sport’s fastest runner and she clocked a 1:10:59 when winning Challenge Gran Canaria in 2023.
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Next – and some way off – is Olympic silver medallist Julie Derron’s 1:12:37 at Challenge Walchsee in 2024 and they are the only two women to so far go under 1:13, though Canada’s Tamara Jewett has come very close on more than one occasion.
