VIDEO: Natasha Wodak and Kinsey Middleton detail knockout Houston Half Marathon performances

The Houston Half-Marathon took place over the weekend and it was packed with Canadian talent. The half-marathon (which we referred to as to as the Canadian Half-Marathon Championships of sorts…) took place on Sunday. 

For full details of how the race went down, see our race report here. 

Canada Running Series’ Alan Brookes was on the scene and managed to chat real quick with Natasha Wodak – the first Canadian woman across the line – and Kinsey Middleton – the third Canadian female across the line. Rachel Cliff was the second Canadian female running an impressive 1:11:52. Cliff, who is from Vancouver, went under 1:12 for the first time to set a PB. 

Both Natasha Wodak and Rachel Cliff were recently named to Canada’a Commonwealth team. 

After her race, a happy Wodak gave a quick interview recapping how it went for her. Having recently battled with a nasty injury, Wodak will be extra proud of this result which was a mere 11 seconds off of her PB. She ran 1:11:31 (her PB stands at 1:11:20) with her goal going in to the race being 1:12. The fact that last year’s toe injury nearly had her pondering about retirement makes a performance like this all the more sweet. 

RELATED: Wodak gets real about emotional time off with injury

goal was 1:12 and to feel good. 

10 seconds off my PB & first Canadian today in Houston- I’m a happy girl!! #HoustonHalfMarathon pic.twitter.com/eBGa5Ovpg0

— Natasha Wodak (@tasha_wodak) January 14, 2018

“It was really awesome because there were a lot of other girls that went out really hard and we stayed back and followed our plan. That was really good and it worked,” she said after her race. Speaking about the final stages of the race, she sounds quite satisfied with her performance as well.  

“I closed hard with 3K to go,” she said. “I knew I was within a PB and I tried but I came a little short but I’m still happy.” 

Third Canadian across the line, Kinsey Middleton, also had a chance to speak with Brookes. Middleton (formerly Gomez) says she was thrilled to race with such a talented group of Canadian women. The runner has been having a great run of it recently having taken three minutes off her PB late last year in Monterey Bay and another minute off that PB just yesterday.

“I just focused on being tough,” she said. “I knew it was going to be hard to run faster than ever run before so I just tried to focus on embracing that and I just enjoyed racing with such talented women – I really enjoyed that aspect of it.”