EILISH HAPPY TO BE IN THE RUNNING
Scot hopes best shot is enough in tough test
EILISH McCOLGAN will throw everything at landing her first global gong tonight in Eugene.
The Dundonian senses the quickest time of her career is possible in the women’s 10,000 metres final.
Even, just maybe, knocking the 18 seconds from her best required to capture yet another of Paula Radcliffe’s British records.
The 31-year-old knows the competition is mightily stiff, with Dutch defending champ Sifan Hassan, Letesenbet Gidey and Ethiopia’s world record holder all long-distance dynamos.
But McColgan, who was ninth at the Tokyo Olympics, said: “All I can do is just hope I have a great day and that I run to the best of my ability.
“And if that gives me top five I’ll be over the moon.
“If it’s only good enough for top eight then it is what it is.
“Even Paula Radcliffe never won the medals she should have won and she’s one of the greatest runners of all time. You have to have luck on your side as well.
“Even if I was a low 29-minute runner, it still doesn’t guarantee you a medal on race day.
“So it’s certainly not something that I’m going in gearing up for. And if I don’t get it, then I’m not a failure.”
Legitimately, McColgan cannot know where she stands. Her form in the opening five months of this year was formidable, with European bests on the roads for 10km and 10 miles. UK records at 5km and half-marathon before surpassing her mother Liz’s Scottish best over 10,000m on the track in Hengelo.
But in her last race in Oslo she could not even get to the finish line. An illness bug struck. It cost her precious preparation time for the worlds. But she has still opted in for a difficult double with the 5000m to come next week.
She said: “I didn’t have Covid. If I’d had Covid there’s no way I would have thought about doing the double.
“But I just missed so many races this year. For me, if it was the 5000 first, then 10000m, I wouldn’t have bothered with the double.
“But the 10000m is my priority, my main goal. So I don’t think there’s any harm in me doing both.”
Joined in the final at lunchtime local time by British champ Jess Judd, this is likely to be the last time the Scot attempts both at a track championships. Maybe even the final shot at emulating Liz whose world title at 10000m came 31 years ago in Tokyo, which has been named as host of the 2025 worlds.
A move up in distance beckons in the autumn at the London Marathon. After injuries and occasional inexperience blighted her 20s, this fourth decade has seen McColgan come into her own.
She said: “In previous years I’ve showed glimpses of that in training and then I’ve just not been able to get a race in order to replicate it.
“Certainly for 5000, from 2019 onwards , I was definitely in better shape than the 14:45 I ran at the world champs in Doha. And that really was a bit of a catalyst for me to change training and just change everything we’re doing. “Because I was frustrated I felt like I wasn’t getting the performances out that I knew I was capable of. So we made a lot of changes and they’ve worked.”