(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Published with permission.

ATLANTA (28-Feb) — After winning the historic Manchester Road Race in Connecticut last Thanksgiving, Andrew Colley took some downtime with his wife, Tristin.  They visited with family and spent some time with his relatives’ children.  It was great fun, but there was a downside.

“I had a little bit of a holiday sickness from being around the little ones at the holidays,” Colley said at a press conference here today in advance of Sunday’s USATF Half-Marathon Championships, part of the Publix Marathon Weekend.

Colley, 33, felt well enough to knock out a personal best 1:00:47 at the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon on January 19, but whatever pathogen had invaded his body wasn’t done with him.

“Actually, I had to go from the Houston finish to an urgent care,” said Colley.  “I had a throat infection from strep throat that I didn’t know I had.”

Colley –who trains under the ZAP Endurance program in Blowing Rock, N.C., coached by Pete Rea– revealed that he’s been struggling with illness for the better part of two months.

“Since December 23rd I’ve been on three rounds of antibiotics because I’ve been sick so much,” Colley lamented.  “I’m just happy to have that out.  So, I had to take a little time to let my body heal up before getting back into training after Houston.”  He added: “I took about, like, a week to kind of get that out of my system.  Training’s been pretty good, a lot of mileage, too.”

Here in Atlanta, Colley hopes to make a fourth national team, and his first in road running.  He’s competed at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships three times with a best finish of 36th place in 2023.  He has always loved head-to-head racing, and at Sunday’s race the top-3 men and top-3 women will qualify for the 2025 World Athletics Road Running Championships, regardless of their finish times.  Unlike the Olympic and World Championships marathons, the world championships in San Diego have no time standard for qualifying.

“I kind of lean towards the racing versus the time trial,” Colley said.  “I feel like racing, you have things that go wrong, people can make different moves.  It’s just much more exciting for the runners and the fans.  If it’s just a time trial you know everyone’s there to run fast, it’s a little more boring.  I’m excited about the chance to respond to moves, see how my competitors are doing, and try to outrace them.”

On February 13th in Armagh, Northern Ireland, Colley vividly demonstrated that he had gotten past his recent illness.  Racing in the 47th Armagh Road Race –perhaps the world’s deepest 5-K with 152 men running sub-15:00– Colley set a course record 13:33.  He prevailed in a three-way sprint finish.

“That was kind of like a let’s race and see how your wheels are doing, despite doing mileage,” Colley explained.  “I set a course record and I’ve never been more confident in my kick than I am now.  I’m pretty excited to see what I’m able to do.”

While the course for Sunday’s race here is World Athletics-certified and record-eligible, it’s unlikely that Colley would set a personal best.  That’s because the course is hilly, with an elevation difference of 58 meters (190 feet) between the course’s highest and lowest points.  Colley, who had a top finish of seventh place at the NCAA Cross Country Championships during his collegiate career with North Carolina State, likes his chances on a hilly course.

“We’re up in the mountains,” said Colley of his Blowing Rock training domain.  “So we’ve been doing some hills and getting used to some changes in elevation.”

All of the training for Sunday’s race is part of a longer preparation program for the Prague International Marathon on May 4.  Colley hopes to significantly drop his 2:11:22 personal best from Chicago in 2023.  He’d like to see something closer to 2:07, the pace he was on in the 19th mile of the 2024 USA Olympic Team Trials Marathon in Orlando when he dropped out.  That’s a reasonable goal given that his half-marathon personal best is equivalent to a 2:07:37 marathon according to the time-tested Riegel Formula.

“I try not to limit myself too much,” Colley said, thinking about Prague.  “The next goal is to run Prague Marathon in the spring and run really fast.”  He continued: “Pete is saying he wants me to run 2:07 or better.  I’m going to try.”

Now in the last phase of his pro career, Colley is trying to pick his spots and tackle his remaining goals.  He’s also trying to keep in touch with the joy of running itself which originally brought him to the sport when he was a teenager growing up in Williamsburg, Va.

“The beginning of my career being so riddled with injuries and setbacks, I just have an expectation of myself that I haven’t even come close to,” Colley revealed.  “I kind of approach every day with I’m going to have as much fun as I can with running today.  That is what I’ve felt has kept me going when a lot of people have kind of lost the mojo for it.”

PHOTO: Andrew Colley (left) leading the 2023 USATF 20-K Championships in New Haven, Conn. (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)