HOUSTON – USA Track & Field and the Houston Marathon Committee announced today that the 2014 and 2015 men’s and women’s USA Half Marathon Championships have been awarded to Houston, Texas.

Houston has a strong history of hosting national championship events, including the men’s and women’s 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials – Marathon, the women’s 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials and 12 U.S. Half Marathon Championships since 2005.

“This is the ideal way to celebrate our 10th year with Aramco Services Company,” said Wade Morehead, Executive Director of the Houston Marathon Committee. “We would like to thank USATF as we are honored to take on this responsibility again and we look forward to bringing the U.S. Half Marathon Championships back to Houston in 2014.”

The men’s and women’s national half-marathon championship races will be run in conjunction with the Aramco Houston Half Marathon in Houston. The events will be held in January in 2014 & 2015.

“We are excited to have Houston and Columbus play hosts to our USA Half Marathon Championships from 2014 through 2017,” said USATF CEO Max Siegel, who also awarded the 2016 & 2017 U.S. Half Marathon Championships to Columbus, Ohio today. “We look forward to working with both cities to deliver what promises to be four years of elite competitions that will highlight the talents of our nation’s best runners.”

USA Track & Field (USATF) is the National Governing Body for track and field, long-distance running and race walking in the United States. USATF encompasses the world’s oldest organized sports, some of the most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the #1 high school and junior high school participatory sport and more than 30 million adult runners in the United States. For more information on USATF, visit www.usatf.org.

About the Houston Marathon Committee, Inc.
Established in 1972, the Houston Marathon Committee, Inc. (HMC), a Running USA Founding Member, annually organizes the nation’s premier winter marathon, half-marathon, and 5K. Over 250,000 participants, volunteers and spectators make Chevron Houston Marathon Race Day the largest single-day sporting event in Houston.  Race Weekend generates over $50 million in economic impact for the region annually.  In 2012, the Run For a Reason Charity Program raised a record $2.3 million and the HMC garnered Silver Certification from the Council of Responsible Sport for industry-leading sustainability initiatives.  Host to 12 U.S. Half Marathon Championships since 2005 and the 1992 women’s Olympic Trials Marathon, HMC conducted the nationally-televised 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon, which featured men and women competing on the same course simultaneously for the first time, vying for the chance to represent Team USA at the 2012 Olympic Games.