A five-mile loop and beef stew
1972The first Houston Marathon was run on 30 December 1972. It had 113 runners and a crowd of about 200 people, and the course was a loop of 5 miles. Runners were served beef stew after the race.
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Course & Elevation
The Chevron Houston Marathon is a road marathon in downtown Houston, Texas, run on a Sunday in mid-January together with the Aramco Houston Half Marathon and the We Are Houston 5K on the Saturday. The marathon and half marathon start at Congress Street and Fannin Street near the Houston Astros' ballpark, Daikin Park, and the marathon finishes at Lamar Street and Crawford Street beside the George R. Brown Convention Center. The USATF-certified course runs through Houston Heights and Neartown, past Hermann Park and Rice University to Uptown, then through Memorial Park and along Allen Parkway back downtown. The two races share the course up to mile 7.6, and the surface is a 50/50 mix of concrete and asphalt. The time limit is six hours, a pace of 13:45 per mile, and the course closes on a rolling schedule. The first Houston Marathon was run on 30 December 1972 with 113 runners. The 2026 weekend drew more than 30,000 participants. The course records are 2:05:45 for men (Zouhair Talbi, 2026) and 2:19:12 for women (Keira D'Amato, 2022).
Surface: road Profile: Flat
Weather
Typical climate for the race month — an estimate, not a forecast or a race-day record
Temperature 12°C
Humidity 75%
Rain Chance 32%
January in Houston is cool and damp: average highs are around 18°C and lows around 7°C, with rain on about 10 days of the month.
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Race Lore
Talbi lowers his own record
2026Zouhair Talbi won the 2024 Houston Marathon in 2:06:39 for the course record, then returned in January 2026 and ran 2:05:45. He had represented Morocco in 2024, and in 2026 he ran as an American citizen, the first American winner of the men's race in more than 20 years.
A future president at the 1993 race
1993In January 1993, George W. Bush, then 46 and a part-owner of the Texas Rangers, ran the Houston Marathon in 3:44:52. It was more than a year before he became governor of Texas.
Famous Runners
GW
George W. Bush
43rd President of the United States; ran Houston in 1993 as part-owner of the Texas Rangers
3:44:52 1993
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Course Record
02:05:45
Zouhair Talbi (2026)
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Fun Facts
- ▸ The first Houston Marathon, on 30 December 1972, had 113 runners and a crowd of about 200, and runners were served beef stew afterwards.
- ▸ Zouhair Talbi set the previous men's course record, 2:06:39, in 2024, and lowered it to 2:05:45 in 2026.
- ▸ Keira D'Amato's 2:19:12 in 2022 was an American women's marathon record at the time.
- ▸ The marathon and half marathon share the same course up to mile 7.6.
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