The 2025 Chevron Houston Marathon and Half-Marathon on Sunday, Jan. 19, will likely be a significant season opener for a handful of elite Canadians, together with Canadian marathon report holder Natasha Wodak. Ten of the nation’s prime athletes are set to tackle the half-marathon or marathon occasions.
Ladies’s half-marathon
Wodak is the only elite Canadian competitor within the ladies’s half-marathon occasion. Whereas she competes primarily within the marathon, the 43-year-old remains to be conversant in shorter races–she holds a half-marathon private better of 1:09:41. Wodak is contemporary off her first nationwide marathon title on the 2024 Canadian Marathon Championships in October, and took house ninth place in Houston final January.
Males’s half-marathon
4 Canadian males will line up for the lads’s half-marathon, led by 5K and 10K nationwide report holder Ben Flanagan. The Kitchener, Ont., native holds a private better of 1:01:00 from 2022, and will likely be seeking to kick off his 2025 season with a powerful efficiency. Paris Olympic 5,000m finalist Thomas Fafard of Quebec will return to Houston after a Twelfth-place end in 2024, the place he set his half marathon private better of 1:02:17. Milton, Ont.’s Ben Preisner, Canada’s third-fastest marathoner, may even toe the road after an eight-month hiatus from racing. He holds a private better of 1:02:42.
Olympic steeplechaser John Homosexual of Kelowna, B.C., will spherical out the Canadian elite crew to make his half-marathon debut.
Ladies’s marathon
Windsor, Ont.’s Dayna Pidhoresky, who holds a finest time of two:29:03, heads to Houston to run her first race since June and first marathon in additional than a 12 months. The 38-year-old will likely be joined by Port Elgin, Ont.’s Rachel Hannah, the 2024 Across the Bay Street Race champion, who lately claimed bronze on the 2024 Canadian XC Championships in November.
Males’s marathon
Broatch returns to Houston, undoubtedly seeking to enhance on his top-10 end from final 12 months’s occasion, the place he set his private finest of two:11:51. The 26-year-old will likely be joined by compatriots Andrew Alexander of Toronto and Phil Parrot-Migas of London, Ont., each boasting contemporary private bests from October. Alexander ran 2:14:13 in his debut on the 2024 Canadian Marathon Championships in Toronto, whereas Parrot-Migas raced to a finest of two:15:32 on the 2024 Chicago Marathon.
The complete elite area for the Houston half marathon and marathon might be discovered right here.