Lauren McNeil and Alice Wright will race at the Aramco Houston Half Marathon on Sunday 11 January.
Elite fields for the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, which takes place on Sunday 11 January, feature three British athletes; Lauren McNeil, Alice Wright and Robert Warner-Judd.
Lauren McNeil will open her 2026 in Houston. Often seen at domestic and club-organised races, Lauren now lives in Canada and studies at the University of British Columbia. Notably, she competed at the European Championships in Rome and World Cross Country Championships in Belgrade in 2024. Her PB of 70:01 came at the Manchester Half Marathon in 2025. Lauren won the Edmonton Half Marathon last August.
Now based in Albuquerque, Alice Wright returns to Houston having finished eighteenth at this race in 2019. Three years earlier, she finished second at the Houston Marathon, held on the same day as the half, in a then-PB of 2:29:08. More recently, Alice raced at the Palm Beaches 10k in Florida last month, winning by over three and a half minutes in 33:11. She also won the challenging (but picturesque-sounding) Epidavrios Dromos Half Marathon in Greece in May.
Alice has twice run at the European Championships, finishing sixth in the 10000m in 2018. She set a marathon PB of 2:28:48 in Valencia in 2024.
Lauren McNeil (left) at the 2024 European Championships. Photo: James Rhodes
Full Fields
Headlining the field are four women who have run inside 67:00 for the half marathon. Fastest is Ethiopian Tsigie Gebreselama, who’s PB of 64:21 puts her in tenth on the all-time list. She is joined by Kenyans Evaline Chirchir (66:01) and Veronica Loleo (66:40), and fellow Ethiopian Buze Diriba (66:24). Taylor Roe and Amanda Vestri, who made her marathon debut in New York City in November, lead the home entrants.
Kenyan Vincent Ngetich (59:09) has the fastest PB in the men’s field. He will face Americans Galen Rupp and Hillary Bor, Cam Levins of Canada, and Marcelo Laguera of Mexico amongst others. Twelve in the field have PBs inside 61:00, with an additional seven under 62:00. Habtom Samuel, the reigning NCAA Cross Country Champion, will make his half marathon and road racing debut.