After more than a decade of running marathons, Pattie Peña thought she was ready to move on.
The Houston native had accomplished what she set out to do: become a Houston Marathon Legacy runner, break five hours in the marathon, and build years of memories along the way.
After the 2025 Houston Marathon, she announced she was done with the distance. Following the 2026 Houston Half Marathon, she decided she was ready to step away from long-distance running altogether.
But then a friend asked her to run another marathon.
In this episode of Runners of HOU, Pattie talks about going from her first three-mile run at Memorial Park to completing a marathon just months later, the training that helped her take more than 30 minutes off her Houston Marathon time in 2020, and the emotional experience of running a half marathon after losing her mother.
We also talk about her adventures in triathlon, the challenges of finding motivation after years of structured training, and why she’s approaching her next marathon differently.
Pattie is now preparing for the 2027 Every Woman’s Marathon in New Orleans, where she’ll run in support of a friend who survived breast cancer.
It’s a conversation about changing goals, finding motivation, the friendships that running creates, and realizing that sometimes being done with something isn’t quite as permanent as you thought.
In this episode:
- How Pattie went from running three miles to completing her first marathon in 2013
- Why she kept returning to the Houston Marathon
- The training and friendships behind her 4:26 marathon breakthrough
- Taking on triathlons despite being afraid of swimming
- Completing the virtual Houston Marathon during the pandemic
- Running a five-second PR in Houston in 2025
- Why she decided to retire from marathons—and then long-distance running
- The half marathon that helped her feel connected to her late mother
- Finding motivation again after stepping away from structured training
- Why she’s running another marathon in February 2027
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