Canada’s most embellished distance runner on the observe, Moh Ahmed, is stepping up in distance. On Jan. 14, the 31-year-old Olympic silver medallist will make his half-marathon debut on the Aramco Houston Half Marathon.
Ahmed has had a illustrious profession on the observe, profitable Olympic silver and setting Canadian data over 5,000m and 10,000m, however has not raced on the roads a lot. Exterior of some native street races and profitable the Canadian males’s 10K title final 12 months, Ahmed has not but examined himself over 21.1 or 42.2 km.
“The Aramco Houston Half-Marathon sits at a great level on the calendar, and will enable me to check the health I’ve constructed up from a terrific fall of coaching,” Ahmed mentioned in a press release on his half-marathon debut. “I do know the course is a quick one, and so if the climate is nice, I stay up for mixing it up with the opposite guys up entrance and seeing what I can do on the streets of Area Metropolis.”
Houston is called one of many quickest and best half-marathons in North America, and Ahmed will get the chance to problem the Canadian file of 60:18 held by Cam Levins. Three of the final 5 profitable instances in Houston have been beneath the Canadian file mark; the course file is 59:22, from Rio Olympic marathon silver medallist Feyisa Lilesa in 2012.
Ahmed will face a robust discipline of competitors, with many American runners utilizing the Houston Half as a tune-up for subsequent month’s U.S. Olympic trials in Orlando, Fla., together with 2016 Olympic marathon bronze medallist Galen Rupp and the highest North American finisher on the 2023 Ottawa Marathon, Parker Stinson. He can even face Abel Kipchumba of Kenya, whose 58:07 private greatest leads a robust East African contingent. Kipchumba gained the B.A.A. Half Marathon final November and was fifth on the 2022 Berlin Marathon.
Canada’s Rory Linkletter, who holds a private better of 61:08, can even be within the males’s elite discipline, in preparation for the Sevilla Marathon on Feb. 18, the place he hopes to realize the Olympic customary of two:08:10.
Ahmed turned 33 on Friday.
You may view the complete checklist of elites for the Aramco Houston Half Marathon right here.
