EILISH MCCOLGAN admits that as bad a year as this has been for everyone, she has escaped fairly lightly.
When lockdown hit the UK in March, the 30-year-old had just arrived in Arizona for a training camp in her regular haunt of Flagstaff. And so, for the next three months, McColgan got her head down and trained, despite not knowing when on earth she would return to competition.
During that time in America, McColgan, along with every athlete in the world, was hit with the news that the Olympics had been postponed. While that was, she admits, hard to deal with, the Dundonian emerged from the summer with boundless optimism about the shape she was in.
“I’ve probably had my most consistent year because I’ve not really had a single niggle so what’s been frustrating is that I’ve not had the races to show what shape I’m in,” she said.
“On the other side of things though, this is an opportunity to get stronger ahead of next year and it’s a training year that we don’t ever get. And you never regret the training you put in.”
While some athletes take staying healthy and injury-free somewhat for granted, McColgan has been plagued with injuries over the course of her career and so is quick to appreciate going a full year without having any issues.
And having such a sustained period of fitness means she heads into next year and the lead-up to the Tokyo Games with the confidence of knowing exactly what she needs to do to make sure she is in the shape of her life come next summer.
“Having no niggles has just reinforced to me that the body I have now is a much stronger one than I had as a 20 year-old and I feel much more confident in my own body knowing that I can stay injury-free,” she said.
“It’s about training smart now, not just training hard all the time and that’s something I’ve learned over the past few years as I’ve got older. As a youngster, I just battered myself every day and I think I was probably pushing myself too hard a lot of the time and not having enough recovery. But now, I know what training works well for me and what I can do without breaking down.”
If everything goes to plan, McColgan will be making her third Olympic appearance in Tokyo having competed in the 3000m steeplechase at London 2012 and the 5000m at Rio 2016. She is going for the 10,000m in Japan but it is not just her event that’s different this time around.
“I’m a completely different person compared to the lead-up to London. At London, I had no idea what to expect because I was so young and inexperienced and so I just enjoyed the whole occasion of it. It was like a dream – you’ve watched the Olympics on television and then there you are at the Olympics yourself,” she said.
“This time I know what to expect and so I’ll be going there with more of a performance mind on. Now I want to run a PB every time I step on the track and get as close as I can to the top five in the world.”
McColgan’s performances are, unsurprisingly, inextricably linked with those of her mum’s, Liz. But it is not just commentators and observers who make constant comparisons between mother and daughter; McColgan admits that, particularly as she moves up the distances, she is becoming increasingly competitive with her mum’s times.
Now that she has moved up to the 10,000m, the event in which her mum became world champion in 1991, she admits she has had more than a fleeting thought of becoming the fastest McColgan over the distance. As things stand, McColgan’s personal best over the distance of 31 minutes 16.76 seconds is just under 20 seconds slower than that of her mother’s best but she has her sights well and truly set on bettering her mum’s time in the not too distant future.
“I definitely have one eye on my mum’s PB,” she said. “That’s the only Scottish track record she has left so I’d like to try and beat it. My mum has always said I’m capable of doing it but I never believed it – I just didn’t think I could ever get close to those sort of times but now, I see the times I’m doing in training and I’m feeling more confident.
“She’s believed it for years and I’m finally catching up and starting to believe it as well. I know how much work she’s put into me from when I was young and how much work she puts into my training now so I know it would be really special for her, as well as me and my dad, for me to break that record.”
McColgan’s long-term plan is to move up to the marathon, with her pace-making duties in October’s London Marathon giving her some valuable experience over the longer distance as well as a welcome taste of racing, but for now, her focus remains on the track. With races few and far between over the coming months, she admits it is impossible to implement a plan over the winter. So keen is she, though, to get her racing shoes on, she will take almost anything that comes her way.
“I have no idea when I’ll next race. Everything I had planned has been cancelled and I’ve tried to get into a few other races but they’re all completely full so it’s really difficult,” she said.
“It feels weird training when you’re not sure what you’re training for. I love running so it’s not a problem but it’s very different from usual. Even if it’s just a small race, it’s good to have something to build towards but we have to just see what happens. I’ll take anything though just to get a race.”
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