Zouhair Talbi runs 2:05:45 to win Houston as an American, a course record
Talbi broke his own Houston record and became the first American man to win the race since 2003; Calli Hauger-Thackery won the women's race in 2:24:17.
Photograph: Zouhair Talbi at mile 25 of the 2025 Chicago Marathon, by Photoguy1212, CC0, via Wikimedia CommonsZouhair Talbi won the Chevron Houston Marathon on Sunday in 2:05:45, a course record. He had set the previous one, 2:06:39, when he won here in 2024 running for Morocco. This time he raced as an American citizen, and the organisers noted he is the first American man to win Houston since 2003. He went through halfway in 1:03:05 and ran the second half faster. Adane Gebre of Ethiopia was second in 2:06:16 and Kenya's Shadrack Kimining third in 2:07:35.
His wife, Elizabeth Talbi, finished tenth in the women's race in 2:35:36, inside the US Olympic Trials standard.
Britain's Calli Hauger-Thackery won the women's race in 2:24:17, taking the lead at halfway and never being headed. It came 28 days after she won the Honolulu Marathon. Athletics Weekly counted eight marathons for her in 27 months, and noted she is the first British woman to win Houston since Veronique Marot in the 1980s and early 1990s. Sara Hall, 42, was second in 2:26:26 after entering as a pacer, and Biruktayit Degefa third in 2:28:07.
Houston's half marathon the same morning produced its own course record, which is a separate story.
Two course records on a Sunday in January is the flat, fast, well-run Houston that elite runners keep coming back for. A man winning the same race for two countries, four minutes under his first mark, is the part people will remember.
Sources: Chevron Houston Marathon; Athletics Weekly; Running USA; KPRC Click2Houston.
