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Mickow, 31, had run well in his fourth marathon. It wasn’t a PR (his best time is 2:11:22 from the Marathon Project in 2020), but he calmly managed the warm temperatures, humidity, and gusty winds in Chicago. As each mile elapsed, Mickow kept thinking to himself that it was the best he ever felt at that point in a marathon.
What turned out to be more significant, however, was how he competed. Mickow ran away from the pack of eight men that he had been with at the halfway point, dropping the last one, Nico Montañez, about a half mile from the finish line. He also passed five others who had been ahead of him.
“Time was out the window,” Mickow told Runner’s World. “It became about racing the guys I wanted to beat.”
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Two weeks later, USA Track & Field (USATF) belatedly announced the selection criteria for the marathon runners on the U.S. team for the world championships in July 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. Then, it became obvious how important it had been that Mickow fought for every spot in Chicago.
The criteria, published on October 26, stipulated that one runner would come from top 10 finishers at the Olympic Games in August. That applied to Rupp (eighth) Keira D’Amato Drops Out of the Chicago Marathon (third), USA Track & Field USATF.
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The next two spots would be filled with the runners who had the highest finishing places at the Chicago Marathon (which took place on October 10), the Boston Marathon (October 11), and the New York City Marathon (November 7).
In other words, the criteria for selecting the team were announced after three of the four selection races had already happened. Running’s cognoscenti immediately took to Twitter to discuss.
Mickow was not participating in the discussion—he has a Twitter account, but he last tweeted a decade ago, and has been a recent arrival to the national scene. He ran in college for the University of Illinois from 2009 until 2012 and set a PR of 29:10 for 10,000 meters, but he never made it to an NCAA championships meet. After graduating in 2012, he took six years off from racing, staying in shape with daily runs and lifting.
Of his post-collegiate days, he said, “I just went and joined the real world.”
Mickow ran his first race since college, the Naperville (Illinois) Half Marathon, in 2018, because it went through the town he was living in at the time. He won it and later that year, he finished second behind Dathan Ritzenhein at the Rock ’n’ Roll Chicago half. His first marathon, Chicago in 2019, was a conservative effort just to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials, where he finished 15th.
Meanwhile, his real-world commitments are serious: He works as a financial analyst for a company in Naperville that distributes organic and natural foods to supermarkets. He puts in about 50 hours per week, either from his home in Oswego, Illinois, or from the office, depending on the status of pandemic. Most of his days, he’s glued to spreadsheets.
So it came as a complete surprise to him that he was in the running for a world championships berth. A buddy texted him a screenshot of some of the Twitter conversation, indicating that he was currently the second American qualifier. Depending on what happened in New York, Mickow would get to run at worlds this summer.
He doesn’t usually have time to watch running or track, but Mickow made an exception for the New York City Marathon. USA Track & Field USATF—better than Mickow’s sixth—and made the team. It came down to Ben True, Colin Who? Meet the Little-Known American on the World Championships Marathon Squad.
Colin Mickow placed 13th in the Houston Half Marathon on January 16 2:12:53. Mickow’s place was secure.
“I don’t want to say I was rooting against the Americans, but yeah,” Mickow said. “Kibet was up there for a long time, so it seems he’s going to place better than sixth. It got towards the end, it was a bit of a nail-biter. It was exciting to watch the race. I wanted everyone to do well, but yeah, maybe not top six.”
Mickow’s success has come from an enormous training volume; before Chicago, he ran several 150-mile weeks. Monday through Friday, he gets up at about 4:30 a.m., hits the road by 5:30 for at least 12 miles, sometimes 18, in the dark. Every evening after work he decompresses with another six miles. On weekends, he does a long run—up to 26 miles—on Saturdays, and Sundays, he joins his team, Published: Jan 19, 2022 10:00 AM EST, Published: Jan 19, 2022 10:00 AM EST.
A Part of Hearst Digital Media progression runs, starting slow and ending at close to marathon pace. He does very little work on his top-end speed. His coach at Second City, Michael Lucchesi, said that although Mickow can run 2:11 for a marathon, he can’t break 60 seconds for 400 meters.
“His strength is his strength,” Lucchesi said. “That’s the nice thing about the marathon; it evens out the playing field as far as talent. You put in the right amount of work, do it intelligently and stay healthy, you can catch up to the rest of the people in the country. At least most of them.”
Mickow’s accomplishments have come without all the extras that pro runners have. He gets free gear from Nike and hydration products from Skratch Labs, two companies that sponsor the Second City team, but Mickow has neither an agent nor any individual sponsorship deals. He doesn’t do altitude stints, and he uses his vacation time to travel to races.
“When people say, ‘I don’t have time for this,’” Lucchesi said, “if he can do it, you can do it. He’s not napping all day. He has a demanding career and finds time to get it done.”
Up until the end of 2019, Mickow had no social media presence. He lacked the time and the interest. His wife, Melissa—who is expecting their first child in March—started an Instagram account for him (followers: 480) and keeps it up to date with photos from his races. Those include a six-second half marathon PR, 1:01:41, Susanna Sullivan Leads American Women at Chicago.
By following other runners on Instagram and watching replays of Olympic marathons and World Marathon Majors races on YouTube, Mickow has gotten a crash course in the landscape of elite distance scene in the U.S. and where he fits in. In a few months, he’ll be competing against the best in the world, whose names he didn’t even know just a few years ago.
But he’s not changing his work life, or his training, anytime soon. Sometimes, he concedes, it can be a struggle with time management during the weekdays, but if anything is going to give, it’s certainly not going to be the sport.
“I like the running too much to cut back on that,” he said.
Best Running Shoes 2025 is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World Other Hearst Subscriptions, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
