Houston Marathon

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).