Eilish McColgan runs London

Eilish McColgan runs in London

Eilish McColgan is a runner! He has been British champion at 1500m and at half-marathon.  She has won European Championship medals at 3K, 5K and 10K.  And going back eleven years she was a Commonwealth Games steeplechase finalist.  This weekend she is running the London Marathon.

She is the daughter of two athletes, Peter and Liz McColgan, and is constantly asked about comparisons with her mum. The first time I asked her, she deflected the question with a “I do steeplechase, so it is hard to compare”.  Now that she is running the London Marathon, which Liz won in 1996, it is harder to sidestep the comparisons.

I met her a few years back at a presentation lunch and asked if she would do an interview with me, she gave me an email address – a standard device for getting rid of a journalist, give an email address and then don’t reply! Not Eilish, same day reply suggesting a date.  Excellent interview.

She was due to run the London Marathon in 2023 but had to pull out due to a knee injury.  In 2024 she ran two half-marathons as well as the 10K at the European Championships and also at the Paris Olympics.

This week she recalled  an amusing first memory of London “aged about 6 sitting in the hospitality tent eating all the free food and looking at a tiny TV screen, not really understanding that my mum was in the London Marathon”.

She added that growing up she thought that “one day I’d do it with the masses and do it for fun. Now being on the elite Start Line on Sunday is very scary!”  She also recalled taking part in the Mini London Marathon: “I never would have believed, when I was running the Mini London Marathon, that I’d be here today at the proper big London Marathon! Taking that trip from Scotland to the Mini London Marathon was a huge event. We took the bus the whole way down and it was just chaos, so many kids from Scotland on a bus, getting down to London for the weekend.   I’d never been to London without my parents before. We stayed in what I remember as a Hogwarts-looking building [Harry Potter], but I’m pretty sure it was just student accommodation. At the time it was crazy; I loved it. I wasn’t in the top five or so the first time, but I improved the second time I ran it”.

Asked about how she has prepared for the marathon she said: “I’ve actually quite liked the taper – the tapering down hasn’t been too bad because I’m not someone who does super high mileage, so there’s not been a huge amount of change. Obviously less than what I had been doing, but not a huge jump that maybe other people would have if they’re running 100+ miles per week and then they come down to about 30.

“For me, the biggest thing was making it to the Start Line. I had a very different experience in 2023, so the last couple of sessions I’ve been doing this year, I’ve felt a lot of nerves about something going wrong, so I didn’t want to overdo it, pick up some sort of niggle, or get sick. There’s definitely a heightened sense of wanting to be on the Start Line this year. London is a bucket-list event for me and having gone through all of the training in 2023 and not quite making it, I’m proud to be here now because it’s been a tough journey to get here.”

She also said that the marathon was a unique sporting event in the way it brings together elite and masses: “It’s very individual and everyone has their own person bests. If you’re running a marathon and you’re trying to run six hours, or you’re trying to run three hours, you’re all doing the same thing. I think having your own PB is probably what draws a lot of people to it. It’s not just the elite side of sport and I think that’s what’s so amazing about running and why there has been such a boom over the last couple of years.”

Despite protesting to me all those years ago that she was a steeplechaser, Eilish always accepted that the marathon was part of her destiny.  She told me in 2022: “It’s something that we’ve thought about for a long time.  I’ve always known that that is the type of runner I am, more strength based than speed and always have been from a very young age.  We can see from training that I have a tendency towards the longer events.  It feels more comfortable and comes more naturally.  I have always been a bit scared to go up in distance because of the injuries that I have had in the past.  I have thought over the years that perhaps I am too injury prone and that I would pick up too many injuries or that I might not reach the mileage needed for marathon.  But over the past two or three years, I’ve realized that I am a lot stronger than perhaps I give myself credit for.  And I am overcoming those fears – what if I get injured -because I used to be scared of that.  I think now I’m ready to make that move up in distance.  Running a few good half marathons gave me a lot of confidence.

“I never wanted to go out to the marathon without having nailed the 10K and the half.  I think it’s just the next step in my career and a lot of athletes do it.  Paula Radcliffe, my mom, even Jo Pavey,  went up to the marathon.  It’s a natural progression that a lot of women at my age make.  You don’t get faster over the 1500 but you do get stronger for the longer stuff.  So it’s the next step in my career.  I don’t know how it will go but we will see and it may be that it doesn’t go as well as I would like and I will be back on the track.  And I won’t shy away from that entirely.  I think it’s the next logical step and I’m looking forward to it”.

There will be great interest in what she can achieve on Sunday.