Andrew Colley arrived in Prague yesterday from North Carolina a little tired, but full of positive energy. The 2024 Manchester Road Race champion is ready to wave goodbye to his current marathon personal best of 2:11:22, set at Chicago in 2023, and knock as many minutes off as possible at Sunday’s ORLEN Prague Marathon.
His training the last two months in Blowing Rock, N.C., has been strong, and included a 20-mile cut-down run which started at 5:50 per mile pace and finished at 4:45. He knows he’s definitely got a lot more potential than 2:11.
“The marathon is the one event that… I’ve under-performed pretty heavily,” Colley told Race Results Weekly in a telephone interview from his hotel in Prague. “There’s a 2:07 pace group, and I’m going to go out with them.
“It might be a little conservative with how training’s going, but you never know with the day, too. That’s my goal: to still run 2:07 pace through 20 and see how much I can take off in the last 10-K.”
Colley, 34, who is the senior member of the ZAP Endurance program under coaches Pete Rea and Ryan Warrenburg, has had Prague on his calendar since last December. His agent, Josh Cox, reached out to the event and Colley got an early acceptance. That allowed the 3:58 miler and his coaches to set up his training and racing program so he could satisfy several other goals and still be in peak marathon shape for Prague.
He ran a 1:00:47 half-marathon personal best in Houston on January 19, set a new course record of 13:33 at the Armagh Road Race 5-K in Northern Ireland on February 13, and took fifth at the USATF Half-Marathon Championships in Atlanta on March 3 where he ran 1:01:09 on a hilly course. Each of those races was aligned with his Prague preparations.
“We knew we wanted to go for the fast half,” said Colley, who ended up getting sick in December but recovered enough to run well in Houston. He continued: “We knew we wanted to do a couple of fast halfs and a marathon a little later.
“So, it still worked out that I got the pieces of the puzzle put into place for today. Even though they weren’t the perfect days for me, they were still part of the ticket to here.”
And what about that 5-K where he won in a sprint finish?
“With Armagh… it was really about proving that my close is still there from Manchester,” said Colley, who won that Thanksgiving Day road race with a powerful long-sprint against Mexico’s Eduardo Herrera.
“From Pete and Ryan’s standpoint they just wanted me to know, OK, you should know after this you can kick with anyone.”
Colley put in most of his miles with ZAP teammate Ryan Ford, who was preparing for the Boston Marathon. The fact that the two athletes were preparing for marathons which were two weeks apart actually worked out well for Colley because Ford is more a natural distance runner, while Colley favors shorter, quicker training. Having company for his long runs, where the duo focused on getting down as many carbohydrates as possible, was key.
“We overlapped quite a bit,” said Colley of his training with Ford, who finished tenth (third American) at Boston in a personal best 2:08:00. “I was just kind of two weeks behind him at all points, but we did a bunch of long runs.
“I’ve always struggled with fueling, so we kind of had that be the focus of this build. Fuel ’till you feel sick. I’ve been over-fueling and getting my stomach as strong as possible for Sunday.”
Of course, Colley was inspired by Ford’s performance at Boston, but also by the 2:26:39 recorded by his wife, Tristin (19th place/7th American). He didn’t go to Boston, and instead of following the race on television he decided to track Ford and Tristin’s progress on the race’s mobile phone app from his home.
“I had the tracking app open and I was meticulously checking every two or three minutes while pacing around our apartment following Tristin and Ryan, both,” Colley said.
“I should have been watching the feed, but I was a little too stressed to watch it.” He continued: “I just stuck to the tracking app and was stressed for two and a half hours.”
The success of his teammates has helped lift Colley’s confidence. Tristin ran the #2 time of her career, despite dealing with stomach distress from 14 miles to the finish. Ford was only in 22nd place at halfway (1:03:42), but trusted his plan and moved up 12 places in the second half.
“Wow, what a smart race he ran,” Colley marveled. “I think he had the sixth-fastest second half.” (Fact check: he did.)
Conditions are looking good for Prague on Sunday where warm temperatures today will be replaced by much cooler conditions for Sunday after thunderstorms on Saturday night. According to Weather.com, Sunday’s high will only be 58F/14C (even cooler at the start).
Colley is trying to get as much rest as possible, even though his training taper is making him a little crazy.
“I kind of, like, feel that with the marathon you get two weeks from your race and you’ve done all the work,” he said. “I’ve done everything as of now, and so I think the name of the game is getting to the starting line feeling great.
“So, I’ve just been trying to baby my legs, trying to embrace the taper, even though I don’t really like tapers, myself. I always feel like I could be doing more, but I’m trying to embrace it.”
Regardless of what happens on Sunday, the Colleys have a firm plan for what comes next, even though their race plans for the second half of the year aren’t fully formed. The couple got married last September, but never took a honeymoon.
“We fly back from Prague on Monday, then me and Tristin are flying to Hawaii for our honeymoon,” he said. “That’s the only thing we have planned so far.”
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The 30th anniversary of the ORLEN Prague Marathon will be celebrated on Sunday, and the race will start and finish at Old Town Square. The race will be broadcast LIVE in the USA on Flotrack with coverage beginning at 2:45 a.m. The course records are 2:05:09 by Alexander Mutiso Munyao of Kenya in 2023 for men, and 2:19:46 by Lonah Chemtai Salpeter of Israel in 2019 for women. The race winners will receive EUR 15,000 in prize money, and there are time bonuses up to EUR 30,000 for a men’s winner under 2:05:00. The race is a World Athletics Elite Label Road Race.