From choosing what to do beyond her running career, to breaking records and setting lofty goals, Eilish McColgan explains why she will be paying attention to what’s close to her heart.
Eilish McColgan is thinking about the future. Not just about her upcoming return to the London Marathon in April, or any ambitions she might have to defend her Commonwealth 10,000m title in Glasgow this summer, but beyond that and to a time when she will no longer be one of the world’s elite distance runners.
The Scot turned 35 last year – she now qualifies in the first of the veteran categories – and won’t deny she is very much aware that time is marching on. She is savouring every moment of being a professional sportswoman, with a pervading sense of gratitude and pride at still being able to run for a living following an incredibly challenging recovery from the surgery to her left knee that she underwent in 2023. It’s only natural that she considers what might come next and it would seem that, thankfully, accountancy’s loss will be athletics’ gain.
“If you’d asked me years ago, I would have assumed it would be something to do with my degree,” she tells AW. “I studied maths and accountancy, and I just thought that one day I would use that. But the last time I even remotely looked at anything to do with that was 2012. I feel so far removed from it and I just can’t see myself not being in the sport in some capacity.”
She has a few thoughts on what that capacity might be. She is no stranger to coaching, while she and her fiancee Michael Rimmer (a former Olympic 800m runner) founded the Giving Back to Track initiative to support young athletes through scholarships and by providing free after-school clubs to deprived areas in Scotland, as well helping clubs through funding. McColgan’s has been a lengthy career and the four-time Olympian certainly doesn’t want everything she has learned to go to waste.
“I’ve coached for a very long time now,” she says. “It’s all online at the moment, because I’m in the midst of my own career but that’s an element that I would like to go down more deeply.
I’ve also thought about going into the agent side of things, because I’ve seen a lot, experienced a lot and I think there are so many young athletes that could do with a female agent – there are not many female agents about at all – but also just someone that is there to purely look after the athletes.
“It wouldn’t be a money-making scheme for me. I’d want to do it because it’s a passion project. Maybe it would be helping young female athletes to get into races, help them with sponsorships, brand deals, things like that. Michael agrees. I think we’ve accumulated so much knowledge over the years and it would be a waste not to try and help the younger generation coming through – not just with coaching, but more of an overall package.”
She adds: “I’d like to continue to support young female athletes, try and get more free after-school clubs up and running – at no cost for primary schools – because PE continues to get cut. Week after week, there are fewer hours for kids being active and it’s just silly – we know the benefits, not just for physical health, but mental health too.
“I’d like to commit a bit more time to that side of things and really, really try and make an impact. Those kinds of passion projects would be what I’m looking at post my own athletics career.”
And would that passion extend to governance? McColgan has never been scared to speak up about issues that she feels need to be addressed within the sport. An articulate, engaging individual like her would surely bring a lot to the table when it comes to decision-making and policy.
“Less so,” she smiles diplomatically, when asked if that route would be of interest to her. “I want to stay in love with the sport and I think, if I went down those avenues, maybe I’d see stuff I wouldn’t want to see. I still like the grassroots, up and coming, the purest side of it. The elite side of things is so much more complicated.
“Ultimately, I enjoy young kids just enjoying our sport and the sport that I love. It definitely gets more challenging the further up the ladder you go, so I think I’d probably like to stay more grassroots and development.
“Never say never. I’m always there to have a conversation, I’ll always be honest and give my opinions and my views, but I think I might get frustrated with that side of things. For me, the real basic basics, kids in sport and youngsters coming through in sport is what I’m most passionate about.”
Regardless of which path she ultimately chooses to follow, it’s safe to say that McColgan won’t be short of things to do. For now, though, happily she is still occupied with another of her passion projects – namely the sporting ambitions she hopes to fulfil in 2026 and at which she is coming from a position of real strength.
Last September’s Great North Run was the first time she can remember feeling that her body – and particularly her knee – were starting to respond how she wanted them to. Since that operation in 2023, which resulted in months away from running, there had been an underlying anxiety that she might never reach the medal-winning, record-breaking heights of the past. Her run of 30:08, a European record, in Valencia last month therefore meant a great deal and provided not just reassurance but an enormous boost of encouragement.
“It’s been nice to feel like all the training that we’ve put in over those last three years has been towards something,” she says. “Because you do start to question: ‘Is it going to be for nothing at all? Is it just going to be a post-surgery PB and a post-surgery training time or vet 35 PB?’
“I’m not stupid, I know at some point those goals will have to change, I will have to start looking at different things and the goals might be not as grand or extreme as they are now, but I feel really lucky to be in a position where I have had such a long career, I’ve come back from a lot of serious injuries, but yet still been able to come back to being my best again. It’s been a three-year slog, and it’s been tough at times, but it has paid off for me. Even just that one PB – it’s been worth it. That’s the bonus I get out of it.”
It has been a busy start to the year. A record in Valencia last month, a half marathon appointment in Japan that took place on February 1 and being announced in the elite fields for London. McColgan’s 26.2-mile debut, delayed twice because of injury, resulted in an eighth-place finish and a Scottish record of 2:24:25 that beat the PB of her mother Liz (a former London winner). Eilish admits that the preparation for that race was rushed, though, as she went “chasing fitness” to make it. This year already feels different.
“With the marathon, I feel like there’s such a huge chunk that can come off of that [time],” she says. “Deep down, I’d love to break through 2:20. There are not a huge amount of European women in the world, or even American women, who have ever been sub 2:20 so it seems like that’s a bit of a barrier. I’d love to be one of those women moving towards that and ultimately, getting as close as I can to the very, very best.”
There is certainly likely to be plenty of attention and support coming her way in the months ahead. McColgan has noticed that her return to form isn’t just helping her.
“Some of the young kids that have messaged me off the back of [Valencia], especially some of the young women I work with through Giving Back To Track… they’ve all suffered injuries, they all have problems that they’re going through. The messages that they’ve sent me, saying: ‘It’s been amazing to see you run a PB after three years’, because then they start thinking: ‘Actually, my two weeks off really wasn’t too bad’. In the grand scheme of things, they’re going to be okay, they’re young enough they can recover and it gives them a bit of hope that they’ve got plenty of time.
“I think that, when you’re young, you have one injury and then you panic and think: ‘Oh, God, this is it now – I’ve missed a month. I’m never going to get back’. But for them to see me at my age, at this point in my career, and still able to get back to that level of performance, I think it just gives them a little bit of breathing space, perhaps, to think: ‘Okay, don’t go crazy. I’ve got time on my side, and I’ll be able to get back if I do it properly’.”
Is that the advice she would have passed on to her younger self, at the time she was starting to make her way in the sport?
“When you’re younger, you’re very robust and I just always thought: ‘I’ll get back, I’m young, I’ll be able to do it’. There was never that same doubt,” she says. “As you get older it does take longer [to come back]. When you’re younger, you can twist your ankle and, an hour later, you’re off and running again but if you do that when you’re in your 30s – I’m sure it’s even more when you’re in your 40s and your 50s and your 60s – the recovery side of things is different.
“But I’d say to probably be more patient. I think when I was younger, I would always try and rush back for the next race. You were always just looking for the next race, the next race, the next race and trying to get ready for it. You’re probably doing races that you weren’t quite ready for and that does have a knock-on effect for the next thing.
“Obviously, there’s an element of it that is my job now so, yes, you rush into races because [something like] the Olympics is a big deal. But I’d say that, since London, we’ve been a bit more specific on: ‘Right, we do this race because this is specifically for training’, or there’s a reason behind every race you’re doing, rather than when you’re a kid, you just want to do everything. I’d say to just be a bit more patient. That’s probably something that would have benefited me a lot in younger years.”