USATF Half Marathon Championships – News – Healthy Again, Colley Ready For USATF Half-Marathon Championships

HEALTHY AGAIN, COLLEY READY FOR USATF HALF-MARATHON CHAMPIONSHIPS
By David Monti, @d9monti.bsky.social
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved – Used 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 in San Diego in September, 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…