Eilish McColgan: 'I'm thankful to even be at the Olympics after illness and injury'
With three Olympics under her belt, Eilish McColgan has some sage advice for younger athletes heading to Paris: ‘Make the most of every moment - because you never know if it will be your first, and last, Olympic games.’
The 33-year-old Dundee-born runner has represented Team GB at the London, Rio and Tokyo events, competing in the 5,000 and 10,000m races. But just a year ago, getting to the starting line in Paris next month seemed uncertain after she was unexpectedly rushed to hospital after falling ill at a friend’s wedding. She underwent emergency surgery to ‘seal a fluid leak’ in her spine, and was kept in for five days. The setback came just shortly after she was forced to withdraw from the World Athletic Championships in Budapest due to a knee injury.
She told Women’s Health: ‘When you’re young you might think you’ll have this big trajectory and go from strength to strength but often that never happens. We pick up injuries and illnesses, and sometimes life gets in the way, so I’d say to those whose first ever Olympics it is, don’t miss the moment.
‘It’s easy to keep so focussed on performance, performance, performance that you almost let everything else slip by and you don’t get the chance to soak up the Olympics. It is a completely different environment to any other championships that we go to, it’s just bigger and better than everything else.
‘You’re there for a reason and you’re good enough to be there so focus on yourself and your own performance and the friends and family that have got you there to that point, but also just completely enjoy it and don’t put too much pressure on race day – it really is about the Olympic experience and making sure you make the most of that.’
Eilish’s operations and subsequent recoveries have meant that her preparations for Paris - where she will run the 10,000m - haven’t been the same as previous events. She admits that she has faced both physical and mental obstacles, and at times she has struggled with low confidence.
While many athletes are heading to the Games with a medal in mind, Eilish is thankful to be making it to the starting line.
‘I’ve had a completely different mindset heading into this year – making the team would be a huge achievement for me and to be one of the best in the country, to be selected in one of those 10,000m spots was always going to be really difficult. I’m coming at it in a different way this time - I’m not looking for times or positions, I’m just happy to be on the start line, to be healthy, to be happy and to have my body in one piece after the surgery is a huge step forward,’ she explains.
‘My preparations heading into Paris have been really challenging. I am coming off over a year of injury. I had knee surgery at the end of last year and so it’s been a really difficult time for me. It was always going to be really difficult to be ready in time but training has been going really well so I’m a lot more confident now than I was even six weeks ago. In that respect, I guess I have a completely different mindset this time than it was for Rio or Tokyo.’
The 10,000m is a brutal race, and the longest Olympic distance on the track. Shortly before 8pm on Friday 9 August, 80,000 cheering spectators will watch twenty-six women from fourteen countries run twenty-five laps around the centre of the Stade de France. How do you even go about training for such an event - especially after a serious injury?
Eilish explains: ‘‘Training for the 10,000m is tough. I’d say coming back from a year of injury, it’s impossible to compete at your absolute best and to be breaking records or running PB’s. For me, it was just about being consistent again. I’ve missed a lot of mileage and a lot of running over that year and a half.
‘The last couple of months have just been about putting one foot in front of the other, getting my training programme ticked off day after day and that consistency will hopefully pay off heading towards Paris.
‘One thing that might surprise people is probably the amount of cross training you have to do as an athlete, especially for me coming back from injury. I’d say a huge part of my plan has been on the cross trainer, on the bike, in the pool – doing all the things I absolutely hate, but I know are really important to offload my body as I’ve come back from this knee surgery.
‘While spending an hour on the cross trainer could be considered boring, I just see it as an opportunity to put on my Shokz headphones and listen to music or a podcast and just completely switch off from the outside.’
As part of her regular training, she’s outside on the track - but doesn't just approach it as a singular 10,000m run.
‘The easiest way I’ve found to mentally tackle long distance on the track is cutting it down into smaller chunks, making it more manageable in my mind,’ she says. ‘If I’m doing a 10k on the track, I focus on the first mile, and then the next mile, and just splitting it into four laps. Then once I get to the latter stages, it might be that I split it into even smaller chunks – for example the last kilometre, or 400 metres, 200 metres etc.
‘I train on the track two to three days a week and so mentally and when you practice something in training over and over again, it becomes a little bit easier come race.’
Eilish has also found that blocking out the outside world has given her the ability to look inwards, and focus on how it felt to win gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, where she set a new tournament record as she crossed the line in 30:48:60. It was the latest British record to add to her arsenal, joining the ones she holds across 5000m, 5km and half marathon distances.
Eilish says: ‘I took a lot of confidence from [that] and I think it just reinforced for me what I can do when my body is in one piece and I’m at 100%. I went into that race with high expectations of winning a medal but I never would have dreamed about winning gold and breaking the Commonwealth Games record.
‘To have all my family there, it really was a fairytale moment for me. I’ve really been able to build on that and I think [about] it coming back now from a year of injury. Mentally it might have been tough to get back out there, and put myself back on a track knowing I might not be at full fitness, but I think knowing what I’ve done [at the Commonwealth Games], and knowing what is possible, I know I can achieve it again. It gives me a little bit of a mental boost to keep going, despite things being tough.’
Being a seasoned Olympian also means that Eilish knows how to handle the pressure that comes from being part of the biggest sports tournament on Earth.
‘Nothing for me will ever be bigger than London 2012. It was my first Olympics at the age of 21 and getting thrown into the deep end. It was a lot to take on board – It sort of coincided with social media too – Twitter was on the rise and we had a lot to deal with, the media was way bigger than anything we had ever done before and this event was just a huge thing that I just couldn’t have prepared mentally for,’ she remembers.
‘It’s definitely helped when thinking about Rio, or Tokyo or even Paris and I feel a lot more relaxed and calm because I know what to expect, including those nerves of standing on the start line with people cheering your name and waving the British flags. I’ve been there and once you’ve got over the initial nerves it’s much easier to feel calm.
‘[Paris] for me is just like any other championships, I can prepare for it without the added extra nerves which is a nice thing to feel.’
When it comes to running, Eilish has - quite literally - followed in her mum’s footsteps. Liz McColgan was also a celebrated runner, and previously held the record which Eilish smashed in Birmingham 2022. But she admits that it wasn’t until she was a teenager that the penny dropped that her mum, who has been her coach throughout Eilish’s career, was a seriously inspiring woman.
She says: ‘My mum has definitely been a huge inspiration to me growing up. I was very naïve as a youngster and perhaps didn’t really understand how good of an athlete she was. She was a World Champion, an Olympic silver medallist - but when I was growing up at 6,7,8 years old, even up to when I was about 15 years old, I didn’t really have a clue what that really meant. It wasn’t until I started making Scottish Championships and going down to the British Championships, that I realised…wow it is hard to become a British Champion and it takes a lot of effort. So, for her to be a World Champion, she’s obviously a huge inspiration of mine and even now as an adult, to think she won the World Championship a year after having me is also an incredible feat.’
For many people, having their mum as their ‘boss’ would be a living nightmare, and for some mums, having a daughter who is excelling in their former profession would be uncomfortable. So have the last few years, and Eilish’s rising star affected their relationship?
‘I would say the dynamic between my mum and I as athlete and coach hasn’t changed massively over the last couple of years, and it certainly hasn’t changed since any of my success. I’d say it has just naturally changed as I’ve grown into an adult now and so I know myself what kind of training I need to be doing,’ she says.
‘I would say I’m probably not as reliant on my mum as I was before - when I was younger, she set my whole programme and had every day planned out. Now we’ll speak most days either on a video call or over the phone and she lives in the Middle East and has a full-time job so she can’t commit the same amount of time now. We are in different continents for large parts of the year, so I would say that has been the biggest change in our dynamic.’
The Olympics always draws huge global television audiences (it was estimated that 3 billion people watched the Tokyo Games in 2021), but people aren’t always tuned in just for the action on the track and field. Athletics fans know that sprinters often arrive at the starting line with incredibly elaborate hair, nails and makeup, sometimes featuring their nation’s flag, or matching their kit. While it’s not as synonymous with middle and long distance runners, Eilish says that she makes sure she’s feeling as confident as possible.
‘Putting make up on is something I do every morning, it gives me a bit of extra confidence before I go out the door and on race day it’s no different. I wouldn’t say I am as particular as the sprinters, but I’ll just use anything and everything that’s in my makeup bag.
‘One of the biggest things I’ll wear most days is my hair bobble – it’s from TIY (Tie it Yourself) and I’ve got such thick hair so I often get asked how I keep my hair up in a 10,000m race but those have been a lifesaver for me. I’m also a big fan of winged eye-liner and so they’re probably the two products I rely on the most.’
There’s also been discourse about why female athletes are expected to wear somewhat skimpy outfits compared to their male counterparts. Earlier this year there was backlash when Adidas’ revealed their Team USA kit, and it featured very high cut running briefs. But Eilish says that for her personally, smaller pieces are her preference.
‘To be honest the most important thing for me is to be comfortable, I like wearing a crop top and briefs. I know people online ask why women wear these crop top and pants but for me it’s just comfortable. When I put it on I feel like that is my race outfit – that’s when we go to war, we stand on the start line and we’re ready to go so it’s just a mental feeling too. As long as it’s comfortable for me and fits well that’s my dream kit – I’m not too picky on colours but I prefer it being bright and colourful rather than black all the time!’
Eilish McColgan is an ambassador for leading electronics brand, Shokz
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