HOUSTON, TEXAS, January 11 — After tearing through an unbeaten harrier season, recently crowned NCAA cross country champion Habtom Samuel decided on one last outdoor adventure before the New Mexico junior heads indoors. His foray to road racing worked out splendidly. Samuel kicked off 2026 with a run to the Houston Half-Marathon course record and an all-time collegiate best 59:01 for his efforts.
“This win is special,” Samuel said. “We have been working hard. This is my half-marathon debut, it is a big occasion. I’m still in college; I’m going to say thank you to my coach [Darren] Gauson for always supporting me. I wasn’t expecting to win the race, but I’m glad that I win and get the course record. It is really a great day.”
Turns out it was a great day for racing all around as Houston once again proved to be the fastest HM in North America with 8 men finishing in under an hour and 10 women under 68:00.
The Ethiopian duo of Fentaye Belayneh (64:49) and Tsigie Gebreselama (64:52) finished 1-2 in the women’s race with Taylor Roe 4th and just short of the AR in 66:20.
Samuel and Kenyan Patrick Kiprop (59:14) both bettered Conner Mantz’s 59:17 course record set last year. Moroccan Mohammed El Youssfi finished 3rd in 59:21, followed by the U.S. threesome of Alex Maier (59:23), Casey Clinger (59:34) and Ryan Ford (59:48). Rory Linkletter took 7th pulling the Canadian Record down to 59:49, and Isai Rodriguez (59:57) was rewarded for his early pace-setting with a sub-60 PR.
That’s right, the men’s record-setting race was achieved sans pacers, but Rodriguez got the ball rolling with a 14:13 opening 5K. Kiprop and Maier joined him in lifting the pace through 5K segments of 14:04 and 14:03 to hit 15K in 42:20 — 59:32 pace. Then Kiprop took off and surged to an 8-second lead at 10 miles (45:20).
That’s when Samuel went to work. “I was a little bit worried about myself and how I’m going to finish since it was my first road race,” he said. “When we got to 10 miles, my body was good, but Patrick was a little ahead of us and I started chasing him. I was good at that time, but I just let him go. Instead of people chasing me, I just like to chase people. That was a kind of a tactic.”
The 22-year-old Eritrean moved past his rival just before 20K (56:08) splitting 13:47 for the 5K segment, then sprinted the final 1097m at a 2:36 K clip!
Samuel recounted, “I felt if I can be with the group at 10 miles, I’m going to go, and go all the way to the finish, and I did it.”
Maier finished just 6 seconds off Mantz’s AR running a huge 85-second PR.
“I knew we were on track for a good one,” said the 25-year-old Oklahoma State alum now training with Alistair Cragg’s Puma Elite group. “I was giving it my all, so I don’t think it would have made much of a difference, but it definitely was close.”
Belayneh prevailed in a fast-paced women’s race that ended in a sprint finish. The 25-year-old, who ran 8:34.30 and 14:30.90 track PRs last summer, admitted, “It was a challenging race, Tsigie is a very strong competitor. Sometimes I would lead and other times she would surge ahead and we kept racing to the end and I was able to win.”
Roe, another OSU alum with Puma Elite, ran a 62-second PR, 66:20, to finish 11 seconds short of Weini Kelati’s year-old AR. That landed her second on both the U.S. all-time performance and performers lists.
“As fast a course as Houston is,” Roe said, “we know this can be a good one. I was just taking advantage of a really good field and trying to compete.”
Additionally, Americans Natosha Rogers (67:30 for 7th) and Makenna Myler (67:37 in 9th) moved up to positions 7 and 9 on the U.S. ATL.
HOUSTON HALF-MARATHON MEN’S RESULTS
1. Habtom Samuel’ (NM-Eri) 59:01 “CR” (debut); 2. Patrick Kiprop’ (Ken) 59:14 (debut); 3. Mohammed El_Youssfi’ (Mor) 59:21 PR;
4. Alex Maier (US) 59:23 (2, 2 A); 5. Casey Clinger (US) 59:34 (3, 3 A); 6. Ryan Ford (US) 59:48 (5, 5 A);
7. Rory Linkletter’ (Can) 59:49 NR; 8. Isai Rodriguez (US) 59:57 (6, 6 A); 9. Hillary Bor (US) 60:04 (8, 8 A); 10. Vincent Ngetich’ (Ken) 60:29; 11. Biya Simbassa (US) 60:32 (10, x A); 12. Haimro Alame’ (Isr) 60:33 PR; 13. Alex Masai’ (Ken) 60:51 PR; 14. Reed Fischer (US) 60:54 =PR; 15. Dylan Schubert (US) 60:55 (debut); 16. Kengo Suzuki’ (Jpn) 60:56 PR; 17. Skylar Stidam (US) 60:58 PR; 18. Cam Levins’ (Can) 60:58; 19. Marcelo Laguera’ (Mex) 61:01; 20. Graydon Morris (US) 61:09 (debut);… 25. Camren Todd (US) 61:23 PR; 26. Andrew Colley (US) 61:30; 27. Galen Rupp (US) 62:01;… 29. Benjamin Eidenschink (US) 62:09 PR; 30. Hunter Christopher (US) 62:10 (debut); 31. Merga Gemeda (US) 62:11 (debut);… 33. Jake Ritter (US) 62:15 (debut);… 35. Brian Barraza (US) 62:15 PR; 36. Sydney Gidabuday (US) 62:22.
HOUSTON HALF-MARATHON WOMEN’S RESULTS
1. Fantaye Belayneh’ (Eth) 64:49 PR ($17,500); 2. Tsigie Gebreselama’ (Eth) 64:52; 3. Buze Diriba (Eth) 65:57 PR;
4. Taylor Roe (US) 66:20 (2, 2 A); 5. Kumeshi Sichala’ (Eth) 66:53 PR; 6. Evaline Chirchir’ (Ken) 67:26; 7. Natosha Rogers (US) 67:30 (7, x A); 8. Laura Galvan’ (Mex) 67:31 NR (debut); 9. Makenna Myler (US) 67:37 (9, x A);
10. Amanda Vestri (US) 67:43; 11. Erika Kemp (US) 68:42 PR; 12. Susanna Sullivan (US) 68:44 PR; 13. Dakotah Popehn (US) 68:54; 14. Jessica Gockley-Day (US) 69:00 PR; 15. Lauren McNeil’ (GB) 69:38 PR; 16. Maggie Montoya (US) 69:43; 17. Honami Maeda’ (Jpn) 70:07; 18. Allie Ostrander (US) 70:11 (debut); 19. Annie Frisbie (US) 70:16; 20. Alice Wright’ (GB) 71:04 PR.
