It’s been a long, arduous road back to this point for Eilish McColgan.
It’s taken well over a year, and has included more obstacles, challenges and setbacks than the 33-year-old would wish on even her worst enemy.
But finally, after a tortuously long injury lay-off, McColgan is back winning races.
In the past month, the Dundonian has run more competitive miles than she did in the entirety of 2023, and won more races than she has since 2022 but more importantly, she’s injury-free and is now within touching distance of her very best form.
Looking from the outside, it was easy for outsiders to wonder if McColgan would ever return to her very best; having suffered a knee injury off the back of a torn hamstring in early 2023, McColgan’s recovery, which was exacerbated by her desire to run last year’s London Marathon, was beset by setback after setback.
The injury couldn’t have come at a worse time; the previous 12 months had been the year of McColgan’s life having won Commonwealth gold and silver at 10,000m and 5000m respectively as well as European silver and bronze at the same distances. She also set a raft of Scottish, British and European records on both the track and the road
But McColgan, who has previously recovered from seemingly unrecoverable injuries, never doubted she’d be back, despite admitting she had dark times over the past twelve months.
“No one knew quite what was wrong with my knee or how long it’d take for me to recover so that was the hardest part because it felt like time was slipping away from me. It was the unknown that was very difficult,” she says.
“I always believed I would get back, though. I knew it’d take a bit of time but I always thought I’d get back eventually.
“I had the right people around me in my mum, dad and Michael (Rimmer, McColgan’s boyfriend and coach) and they never asked me why I was bothering with all of the rehab, they always told me I’d get there eventually. That meant that even on my down days, I had people propping me up.
“Mentally, it was tough but I never felt like I was finished, not yet anyway.”
But wins at both The Big Half and the London Vitality 10k in the past few weeks, as well as fifth place at the Great North Run, were a welcome boost for an athlete who has spent countless hours rehabbing and recovering.
“It’s really nice to feel things are finally heading in the right direction,” she says.
“Although I’m not quite back to my very best where I’m breaking PBs, at least I can see things coming together.
“Over the past few weeks, the main thing for me was to get through those races without any problems and so to do that was a really positive step.”
Despite struggling to regain full fitness for much of 2024, the year had not been an entire write-off prior to last month’s good performances.
McColgan managed, with very little room to spare, to prove she was fit enough to merit Olympic selection (she had achieved Team GB’s qualifying standard prior to her injury woes) and so she made her fourth Olympic appearance at Paris 2024, something no other Scottish track and field athlete has ever done.
So many Olympic appearances are hugely impressive by anyone’s standards but McColgan admits she looks back on Paris, where she finished fifteenth in the 10,000m final, with ambivalence, despite writing herself into Scottish sporting history books.
“Getting to my fourth Olympics is something I’ll look back on in a few years and be incredibly proud of because there’s a reason why no one in Scottish track and field has done that before and it’s because it’s really not easy to maintain that level over so many years,” she says.
“So I’m proud to have made it to Paris but there’s also a part of me that’s frustrated that I didn’t get the chance to give the performance at the Olympics that I’d have liked to – it’d have been nice to have been more competitive.
“My mum (Scottish distance running legend, Liz McColgan) did ask why I was bothering going at all when I wasn’t in the same shape as I’d been the year before but, for me, it was the achievement of making it to the Olympics despite the injuries. It’s frustrating to not have been on top form but that’s elite sport – not everyone can bring their A-game every day.”
McColgan has long been one of the most recognised and popular athletes within Scottish track and field.
Her prominent profile initially came from being the daughter of one of the greatest athletes Scotland has ever produced but both McColgan’s success and her openness about her life have elevated her profile further and have attracted nearly a quarter of a million followers on social media, with her posts regularly getting over a million views.
As is all too common for female athletes, though, being in the spotlight leads to reams of unwanted comments, with the bulk of McColgan’s detractors focusing on her injury status, claiming she’s perennially injured, and how her body looks, instructing her that she’s “too thin” and that she’s “clearly anorexic”.
Unsurprisingly, these comments don’t sit well with McColgan and while she regularly engages with her detractors and is able to brush off the criticisms more effectively than many can, she admits the continuous commentary on her life isn’t always easy to deal with.
“A lot of people online have this misconception that I’m made of glass and it’s just not the case,” she says of the accusations that she’s constantly injured.
“I’m able to separate myself from it because I know it’s just not my reality. I’d made every GB team since 2015 until I missed 2023 so it confuses me where people get this idea from that I’m always injured.
“Then there’s the comments about my body - it sounds bad but I’ve become numb to them. I’ve had to because I get them day-in, day-out.
“People will say things like “look how skinny she is – she must be anorexic” and “her hormones must be affected and she’ll never be able to have kids” and it baffles me how people can conclude these things by looking at a photo of me.
“People who are making these comments online clearly don’t realise how devastating an illness anorexia is because they’re just tossing around this accusation that I’m anorexic.
“I sometimes feel really awkward because I’ve had people message me saying they have anorexia and they know how I feel. That’s hard because I know how much these people must be struggling but I’m not struggling.
“I don’t call out the trolls all the time but I do occasionally because it’s important for young women to see that first of all, I’m standing up for myself and secondly, I am healthy – I do get a period and I do have good bone density and all of these things that wouldn’t be the case if I was anorexic.
“There’s nothing else I can do to prove that this is my natural body shape so it’s about explaining the reality to younger people who follow me so they don’t get confused.
“That’s why I keep publicly calling out people who are calling me anorexic because it’s nonsense and I don’t like people continuing to feed that narrative.”
A fit-again McColgan is now able to plan for 2025 without the injury worries that have plagued her over the past year.
After completing her current training block in Font Romeu, McColgan will decide if she’ll make one last competitive appearance of the year or call it quits and go on a well-deserved holiday.
2025 will be fully focused on making her long-awaited marathon debut, something she’s had in her sights since 2022.
The London Marathon would, she admits, be the dream location for her maiden competitive marathon but the past year has taught her the dangers of pinning all her hopes on one specific race.
“I’d love my first marathon to be London because being a British runner, there’s no bigger and better marathon than the London Marathon,” she says.
“But in 2023, I put all my eggs in one basket when it came to London and it didn’t happen so this time, I’m being more fluid with my plans.
“I’m going into 2025 with Plan A being to run London but I won’t fall into the same trap as I did in 2023 and make it the be-all and end-all.
“I’ll definitely be doing a marathon next year so I just need to decide which one I’ll be on the start line of.”
Given the journey McColgan’s been on, 26.2 miles is likely to feel like a walk in the park.
