The 2025 Houston Marathon By the Numbers

The Houston Marathon is the premier event of the early marathon season in the United States. From January to March, it’s one of the biggest races in the country – and it’s known for having a flat course and a fast field.

This year’s race made the news for the half marathon. Conner Mantz set a new American record for the men and Weini Kelati set a new American record for the women – besting her own record that she had set in Houston in 2024.

But the story of those records is for another day. Today, I wanted to dive into some of the data around the marathon itself. I added the results from the Houston Marathon to the Boston Cutoff Time Tracker, and after doing so I took a look to see how this year’s Houston measured up against previous years.

For this analysis, the historical data comes from Athlinks. The data for 2025 came directly from the Houston Marathon’s website, and it was collected on Monday, January 20. There are some data quality issues for 1999, so I removed it from the dataset.

How Big Is the Houston Marathon?

The Houston Marathon is typically one of the largest races in the country. It was in the top ten in 2024. And this year was no different.

In fact this year was larger than last year by a significant amount. But was it the largest edition of Houston ever?

The visual below shows the number of men (purple) and women (blue) per year – going back to the start of the race in 1972. So you can see the growth over time as well as the changing gender distirbution.

The race was pretty small in the 1970’s. It took off in the 1980’s, growing by leaps and bounds over the next 20 years. By 2004, it consistently had 5,000 or more finishers. Since then, it’s continued to grow to upwards of 7,000 finishers.

This year had 7,563 finishers – there were additional names in the results, but they were marked as DNF, DQ, or otherwise had no official time. This is about 5% higher than last year, but it’s not the most in race history.

Back in 2016, there were 7,809 and in 2012, there were 7,593. 2017-2020 were a little bit below that peak, and the race was cancelled in 2021 in the aftermath of COVID. 2022 and 2023 were relatively small years – as was the case with many races around the country.

Last year, this rebounded pretty hard back up above 7,000. And this year was the largest year since 2016.

In terms of the gender distribution, the race started out like all marathons in the 1970’s and 1980’s – tilted heavily towards men. By 1993, though, over 20% of the field was made up of women. By 2000, it was consistently above 30% – rising close to 40% in a couple of years.

This year, the field was 65% men and 35% women. So a little more imbalanced than it was pre-COVID. Overall, races in the US are split about 60-40, so Houston has a smaller than average share of women.

What Does the Age Distribution Look Like?

The graph below slices the data a little differently.

The top graph represents men and the bottom represents women. Within those two groups, runners are grouped into three large age groups – under 40, 40-60, and 60+.

Note that the y-axis is different between the two graphs. Also, it seems there was a data quality issue in 1990 – so ignore the fact that all of the runners appear to be under 40.

Historically, there are a couple of trends to note.

For men, the size of the under 40 group is pretty stable through the 1990’s and 2000’s. It increases a little in the 2010’s.

The middle group – 40-59 – continues to grow until around 2010 before stabilizing around 2,000 or so runners. At this point, it’s typically bigger than the under 40 crowd.

And the 60+ group is small – but becoming less so in the last 15 years.

Among women, the field is almost entirely runners under 40 through 1990. That cohort continues to grow until 2016. The middle tier – runners in their 40’s and 50’s – grows through the 90’s and peaks in the 2010’s. But even at it’s peak, it’s smaller than the cohort of younger runners.

In the last two years, though, there’s an interesting departure from the norm.

On the women’s side, the 40-59 cohort stays roughly the same from 2022 through 2025. But over the last two years, the size of the under 40 cohort has rebounded – from ~1,100 in 2022-23 to ~1,600 this year. It’s the second largest cohort of women under 40 in the history of the race (behind 2016).

On the men’s side, the older cohorts also remain fairly constant. But the under 40 cohort grows from 2022 through 2025. And this year, with over 2,700 runners, that cohort is far larger than its ever been.

This is a pattern I’ve noticed at some other races. The youngest age groups are growing – and it raises the question of whether these runners are going to stick around for the long haul. If they do, the sport is set up for significant growth in the next 5 to 10 years.

Are the Runners Faster This Year?

Recently, I analyzed the results from the Valencia Marathon – where close to 30% of the men under 40 finish under three hours. The Houston Marathon was one of the races I compared it to, because it’s typically one of the fastest groups of runners in the United States.

So how fast are they – historically and this year?

I calculated the percentage of runners who finished under benchmark times – 3:00 for men and 3:30 for women – and graphed them in a visual below. This contains the rates for the last ten years. I’ve also limited this to runners under 40 – to minimize the impact of age.

Long term, there’s a huge difference.

From 2015-2018, the percentage of women under 40 going sub-3:30 was anywhere from 5-10%. That increased in 2019, and since then it’s been anywhere from 15-20%. The peak year was 2023 (19.95%), and this year was slightly lower (17.05%).

The men’s side shows a similarly stark contrast. From 2015 to 2018, the rate of men going sub-3:00 was about 5-8%. This increased – with a spike in 2022 – and settled around 12 to 14%.

This year, 13.9% of men under 40 went sub-3:00. Other than 2022, that’s higher than any year. It’s particularly interesting, given the large increase in that cohort in 2024 and 2025.

If you’re wondering whether all of these new runners entering the sport are fast … then at least the new runners at the Houston Marathon are fast.

Are They Qualifying for Boston?

A final question that is top of mind for a lot of Boston hopefuls – are they qualifying for the Boston Marathon?

I’ll dig into this more this weekend, when I write up a more thorough analysis of the state of the Boston qualifying field. But for today, let’s just take a quick look at the amount of people at Houston running Boston qualifying times.

This visual shows the percentage of all runners who met the new standards in each year – from 2019 to 2025. Again, for an apples to apples comparison, this is how many runners met the stricter standards implemented this year for the 2026 Boston Marathon.

The field has gotten faster in the last few years. In 2019, just over 10% of women would have met the new standards for their age group. The last two years, it’s been 16.5%.

Among men, that rate went from about 8% to 12.5%.

In both cases, the percent of runners meeting their qualifying times this year is pretty similar to percent of runners who would have met the same qualifying times last year.

But the times changed from last year to this year. And that did result in a drop in the actual number of qualifiers coming out of Houston.

The new times pushed that down, while the increase in finishers buoyed it to some extent. But last year, there were approximately 1,250 runners who met their qualifying times – and that dropped to 1,050 this year.

Any Other Records Set This Weekend?

In the half marathon, Conner Mantz and Weini Kelati both set new American records.

In the full marathon, were there any new best efforts for specific age groups?

Not really. This group was fast, but it was not – in most cases – faster than ever fast.

The exception to that is for women in their 60’s.

In the women’s 60-64 age group, Coco Dughi finished in 3:18:31. That was a whopping 40 minutes faster than the next women in that age group this year. And it was over 10 minutes faster than the previous fastest 60-64 year old woman at Houston – from back in 2003.

In the women’s 65-69 age group, Pam Butler finished in 3:29, beating out the previous best effort for that age group by several minutes.

The overall course records were safe. The men’s winner didn’t even make the top 10 all time list.

The women’s side of things was at least closer. The course record (2:19:12) was set by Keira D’Amato in 2022. This year’s winner – Kumeshia Sichala – was only 90 seconds off that mark, and she scored the 5th best time ever for a woman at Houston. This year’s runner up, Erika Kemp, placed 6th on that all time list.

What Did You Think About the 2025 Houston Marathon?