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Runners of HOU

Bringing you stories and news from the Houston running community.

10/20/2026

“I’m trying to find that girl again.”

When Pattie Peña said this during our recent conversation, it was something a lot of longtime runners could probably relate to.

After more than a decade of marathons, ✨Pattie Peña | Runner & Yogi✨ decided she was done with long-distance running. But when she unexpectedly signed up for another marathon, she discovered that finding her motivation again wasn’t quite so easy.

There’s something frustrating about struggling to do something that used to come naturally. You remember the early mornings, the consistent training, and the runner you used to be. But getting back to that version of yourself can be harder than you expected.

And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we don’t need to get back to who we were.

The latest Substack, When You’re Done, Until You’re Not, explores changing goals, finding motivation again, and figuring out what running looks like now.

Read it at the link in bio.

10/19/2026

Pattie Peña was done running marathons.

After more than a decade of training, racing, and chasing Houston Marathon Legacy status, she’d accomplished what she set out to do.

She ran her fastest Houston Marathon in 2025, beating her previous PR by five seconds, and decided it was time to move on.

Then, earlier this year, she decided she was done with long-distance running altogether.

Except she’s now signed up for another marathon. 😂

And the reason she’s coming back has nothing to do with chasing a time.

On this week’s Runners of HOU, Pattie talks about the different chapters of her running life, finding motivation again, and why she’s heading to New Orleans in February.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Have you ever said you were done with a race distance and then changed your mind?

10/12/2026

Are we taking running a little too seriously?

Sara is back on Runners of HOU, and we have some thoughts. 😂

We start with her Berlin Marathon experience (4:33, minimal training, maximum fun) and somehow end up talking about Boston qualifying, cheating at marathons, overpriced running gear, and whether every race really needs to be a PR attempt.

We also get into something that’s been on both our minds lately: getting older, watching our paces change, and accepting that our bodies aren’t what they were five or ten years ago.

It’s part race recap, part running hot takes, and part two friends catching up over a few glasses of ch*****ne.

New episode is out now! 🎧

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

10/06/2026

I thought Annie’s story was going to be about what it takes to still be running at 60.

I think it’s actually about something harder:

Letting go of the runner you used to be without letting go of running.

After 25+ years of distance running, Annie isn’t training the way she did at 35. And maybe that willingness to change is exactly why she’s still here.

I wrote about that in today’s Runners of HOU.

“The Runner You Are at 60” — now on Substack. https://open.substack.com/pub/runnersofhou/p/the-runner-you-are-at-60?r=m8vz7&utm_medium=ios

10/05/2026

At 60, Annie Almendarez is still running.

But she’s not trying to be the runner she was at 35.

She’s run more than 20 marathons. She’s a Houston Marathon Legacy Runner. She’s raced around the world. She’s also dealt with a torn meniscus, arthritis in both knees and a doctor who once told her she should stop running.

So the question became less about how fast or how far she could run — and more about how she could keep running at all.

Annie and I talk about 25+ years of distance running, how Houston’s running community has changed, what it means to be an athlete at 60 and why she still believes the most important thing is knowing your why.

🎧 Annie’s episode of Runners of HOU is out now.

09/29/2026

We runners give numbers a lot of power.

A PR means progress. A slower time can feel like we’re going backward. And sometimes we use a version of ourselves from five years ago as the standard our current body is supposed to meet.

Rosa Perez ✨’s running history complicates that.

Her 3:25 at SeaWheeze is nowhere near her fastest half marathon. It might also be one of her biggest accomplishments.

I wrote about Rosa, race times and what the results page can’t tell us.

The Finish Time Doesn’t Tell You Anything — now on my Substack.

09/28/2026

A finish time can tell you how long it took someone to get from the start line to the finish line.

It can’t tell you what it took to get there.

After years of chasing faster times, Rosa Perez ✨ was diagnosed with mixed connective tissue disease in 2024. Running changed. Racing changed. And eventually, so did her definition of progress.

We talked about the heartbreak of not finishing the 2025 Houston Half, making it back to that finish line a year later, helping build Latinas Run Houston, her 3:25 SeaWheeze that means so much more than the number — and why she’s not done with the marathon yet.

🎧 Rosa’s episode of Runners of HOU is out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

09/22/2026

Sometimes supporting someone isn’t about knowing the right thing to say.

It’s about showing up.

My conversation with Jamilah Robinson started with running, but it left me thinking about the people who show up for us — and what it means when we can finally say, “I’m not doing this alone anymore.”

New on Runners of HOU.

09/21/2026

Running has been part of Jamilah Robinson’s life for more than 20 years. But somewhere along the way, it became about much more than miles.

After experiencing two miscarriages in 2018, Jamilah found support in a community of women who understood what she was going through. That experience eventually helped lead to Missing Pieces Support Group — and brought her running and nonprofit worlds together through the Life After Loss 5K.

On this week’s Runners of HOU, we talk about running through different seasons of life, finding community in Houston, pregnancy loss and grief, and what it means to help people feel seen and supported.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of miscarriage and pregnancy loss.

09/15/2026

I think there’s a lie we accidentally tell newer runners:

Eventually, running gets easy.

Then I talked to someone with a 3:06 marathon PR and 27 BQs who told me that after eight weeks off, 10-minute miles felt like 5K effort.

Maybe getting better at running isn’t about reaching a point where it stops being hard.

Maybe you just get better at trusting that when it gets hard again, it won’t stay that way forever.

New on the Runners of HOU Substack: Getting Faster Doesn’t Make Running Easy.

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