McColgan to unleash spirited Grand Prix show
Olympic 5000m finalist toughens up for challenge lying ahead in Birmingham
SOMETIMES, Eilish McColgan ruefully reflects, life’s harsh lessons unhelpfully sneak up on you like a pickpocket in search of a wallet.
Just when you thought it was safe to enjoy life on the high seas amid the expatriate folk of Qatar, beware the tides of March. Or in this case January, when the Dundonian was combining a training stint in Doha under the invigilation of her mother Liz with a spot of sea-faring celebration to mark the 50th birthday of the matriarch’s husband John Nuttall.
“We were out on a boat until the wee hours of morning for his party,” she recounts. “But then we kept going around and around before we got into shore. And then I got straight on a long flight to Kenya.”
Our collective sympathies. Or so you’d think.
“Straight away, I knew I was going to get ill there,” the Olympic 5,000 metres finalist advances. Training camp disruption ahoy. “The first week was a bit of a write-off.
“I was deaf in one ear, which most people probably enjoyed because I couldn’t talk as much. The weird thing was that everyone else had a virus. I had a sinus infection.”
Yet, whatever cocktail McColgan’s been on, make mine a double. Because, with two weeks of hard graft possible in the African sunshine, she goes into today’s televised Muller Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham in the finest of fettle and with enough spring in her step to out-bounce Zebedee.
Briefly installed atop the world rankings over 10 kilometres last month, she arrives fresh from taking the British title over 3,000 metres last weekend in Sheffield in combination with silver in the 1,500m.
Understandably, the 26-year-old is keen to maximise the returns of a prolonged period of relatively rude health and give the indoor circuit a decent crack for the first time since she was still a student in her hometown.
If the McColgan of recent winters was bedecked in cotton wool and plastered with a shipping label marked “Fragile”, then version 2.0 is happy to tread the boards and merrily seek out the limelight.
“Endurance-wise, I’m a lot stronger than I have ever been,” she proclaims.
“In Kenya, out of nowhere, I was getting a lot quicker on the track work. There are two sides of the spectrum with the speed but also the strength has improved.
Indoors remains a seasonal diversion, of course. McColgan, whose insightful probes into the training regimes of various competitors provide an educational adjunct to the pages of Athletics Weekly, has soaked up enough knowledge to know that the real goal is impressing at this summer’s world championships in London.
But she is already a little tougher than a fortnight ago. “There’s a bit of barging indoors, which you don’t get outside. I’ve got a big stride and the amount of times, you get clipped, and it chops at you all the time.”
This afternoon, her foes will include Steph Twell, who ceded her UK title in Sheffield when her fellow Scot bolted past, off the final bend.
At the Europeans, Muir will be their primary threat but they will urge her on in Birmingham during her 1,000m dash. “I’m excited to watch that race,” McColgan affirms, “to see how close she gets to the world record.”
“Definitely, there’s an outside chance of a medal if I keep progressing the way I have over the last couple of weeks. Gold and silver have probably gone but I think the bronze is always a chance.”