From the Shadows to HOKA Festival of Miles: Chiara Dailey on Being Overlooked, Training Like A Pro, and Chasing a Sub-4:30 Mile In High School
THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST
Dominic Schlueter
4.9 • 822 Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Braelyn Combe listed five girls she expected to contend with at Festival of Miles. Chiara Dailey's name wasn't one of them.
That detail sits right at the center of this conversation: not as a grudge, but as fuel. Chiara has been one of the best prep distance runners in the country for four straight years: three consecutive California state cross country titles, a sub-4:40 mile PR, four straight national qualifications. She'll be the first to tell you she hasn't had that race yet. The one that changes the conversation. June 4th is where she's been pointing all spring.
This episode goes inside what that actually looks like. She talks about working this season with Eric Avila (a former professional runner and longtime family friend) who shifted the texture of her training: more threshold, consistent lifting,a real focus on form she'd quietly been embarrassed about for three years.
She describes her hardest workout of the spring, why she doesn't learn her sessions until after her warmup, and how she's been training her kick at every smaller meet in the postseason—going out in 32 and closing in 31.
She also goes deep on what winning actually means to her. Her moonshot goal for FOM is sub-4:30 (nine seconds faster than her current PR) and she explains, calmly and without hesitation, why she'd rather win in 4:40 than run 4:29 and finish second. She signs off with a direct message to Braelyn: "I'll see you in Fresno and I'll see you in St. Louis."
She's been around. She's done being overlooked.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on the podcast is one of the top girls contenders leading into the Hoka Festival |
| 0:04.7 | Miles Meet June 4th next month in St. Louis, Missouri. |
| 0:07.8 | Kira Daly, she's been on the podcast before and she's had a dominant four-year stretch in her |
| 0:12.6 | high school career, but has yet to win a massive race as she talks about in this conversation. |
| 0:17.2 | She is gunning and hoping to run sub 430 at the festival of Miles Meet and come out on top and win a title there. |
| 0:23.6 | She ran 439, which is a PR to this day at last year's event in 2025. |
| 0:27.9 | And so you might be thinking, oh, the world is she going to cut 10 seconds off her time? |
| 0:31.3 | She breaks that down in today's conversation being coached by a former professional runner, new training techniques, |
| 0:36.5 | the mindset, new energy, |
| 0:37.8 | as she closes out her final year in the sport of running before going on to bigger and better |
| 0:42.6 | things in college. We break down her energy in the sport, her new training, her mindset going |
| 0:47.7 | to festival miles, as well as calling her shot at other girls racing the race, why she thinks |
| 0:53.1 | she can beat them, and what's it going to take to beat Ellery Lincoln, Brailing Combe, and anyone else who lines up. If you enjoy this conversation, please consider sharing the podcast with a friend. Giving us a five-star review and subscribing to the podcast where you ever listen to you don't miss more conversations like this in the future. If you're interested in learning more about the Festival of Miles meet, you can go to STL FestivalMiles.com, whether that's to support the athlete and need, find out where you can watch the race, buy tickets if you're going in person or figure out other general information that you're curious about. I also want to get a special thank you to Hoka for bringing this series to life being the presenting sponsor of the call room road to st louis i appreciate them for all the |
| 1:28.0 | ways they give back to youth prep consumer and for bringing this incredible meat to like the hoka festival |
| 1:32.9 | miles so without further ado enjoy this conversation with a girl who's coming for it all trying to |
| 1:37.1 | run sub 430 and win a title at the festival miles hoka nIL athlete Kiara Daly. |
| 1:49.4 | Kira Daly, welcome back to the Running Effect podcast. |
| 1:52.1 | We were just talking a second ago about how you're about to graduate. |
| 1:57.6 | With that also comes deeper and deeper into the postseason for track and just bigger and bigger races. |
| 1:58.0 | How are you feeling as the stakes rise every single week? |
| 2:01.6 | I'm feeling really good. Getting a lot of training in and yeah, I'm starting to feel really good. |
| 2:06.8 | Where are you at in the sort of CIF postseason? I know that it's incredibly long and |
... |
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