I USED TO BE A PARTY GIRL
McCOLGAN’S HUNGER FOR ATHLETICS GREW AFTER DITCHING KEBAB LIFESTYLE:
FIVE sessions a week used to mean something very different to Eilish McColgan. Nutrition was once an afterthought, too.
And, looking back on a routine that included regular boozing and kebabs in the wee small hours, the Scot fully understands where she was going wrong.
But regrets? No. Not really. As a teenager who had shown no more than fleeting promise as an athlete, McColgan was simply blowing off steam.
If that meant training with a killer hangover, well, so be it. She needed that experience.
Almost as much as she needed to be provoked — goaded, really — into swapping her stereotypical student life for something altogether more monastic.
McColgan is currently working hard at altitude in Arizona as she pursues a very special goal.
If she makes it to Tokyo next year, she’ll become one of only three Scottish female track-andfield athletes to have competed in three Olympics — joining famous mum Liz and Lee McConnell in an exclusive club.
At the age of 29, the former steeplechaser and current 5,000metres specialist is arguably approaching her peak as a distance runner; an eventual move up to 10k is definitely part of the plan.
McColgan, who won European silver over 5k in Berlin two summers ago, confesses that all of this might have passed her by.
‘It is no secret that I enjoyed university life,’ she said. ‘I just wasn’t a “runner” as such at that time. When I look back now, I know I was still training all the time and that was because I enjoyed it. I went to the Hawks (in Dundee) three times a week.
‘I did have ambitions but not really to make a career from it — to be honest, I wasn’t good enough.
‘I went out and partied. I had a big friendship group. I probably partied more, and harder, than I should have as an athlete. But I don’t regret it. I feel as if I got it out of my system, so to speak.
‘I had some great times, made some great memories, made some not so great memories. It felt like part and parcel of growing up.
‘I still enjoyed the physical part of training — even turning up with a hangover, I’d push myself.
‘But when I made the decision at the start of 2011, it was like throwing a switch. I stopped partying right away and started trained harder.
‘A family member had said to me: “Why do you bother? You do all this training and put in effort but you are never going to make a living from it?”.
‘And I thought: “Well, I still enjoy it so why can’t I do both?”. But, more than that, it just annoyed me a wee bit that someone was saying I was wasting my time.
‘And I thought: “I’ll show you... I actually think I can become a professional athlete”. That was a lightbulb moment for sure.
‘I went from someone who was out drinking five nights a week, not sleeping and eating a kebab at 4am to someone who was teetotal and didn’t go out. Friends were asking me: “Are you okay?”.
‘I just decided at 20 I wanted to commit 100 per cent to my running. The Olympics were looming 18 months later and people were saying that, with it being in London, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
‘I got into a far better routine of eating, sleeping and training and I split my Uni course to give more time to athletics.
‘Within six months, I made my first Great Britain and Northern Ireland team for the Under-23s. And that was a huge eye-opener because suddenly I was away on camp with real athletes — people who were basically eat, sleep, live runners and I thought: “I’m not doing that enough”.’
With dad Peter also an elite athlete, it’s too easy for everyone to assume that Eilish was born to run, so to speak.
Yet she insists: ‘Growing up, my parents sheltered me a bit from the fact they were professional athletes. They wanted to ensure that I got into the sport for the right reasons. They did not want to be known as pushy parents.
‘I had no real awareness of what my mum had achieved or even that my dad was a professional athlete. I think I assumed that everyone’s parents were always out running.
‘I was so naïve as a very young kid — primary school age — and it was only after I went to high school that it really registered.
‘I was confused when other kids crowded around my mum and asked for autographs.
‘My mum was not a coach when I joined Dundee Hawks. She said that if I stuck at it for X number of months, then she would come along, too, and coach me.’
Liz, who still coaches Eilish to this day, has obviously been a great source of knowledge and inspiration over the years.
More surprising, perhaps, was how she reacted to her daughter over-indulging during those early days at university.
‘She was not happy with my lifestyle when I was a student — but she didn’t step in,’ said Eilish. ‘I think she accepted that, if I was serious about running, I would come back to it.
‘But she was always there, always at the track. I think she stepped back a bit to let me mature and become an adult.
‘So the decision, when it was taken, to come back to the sport was taken by me.
‘And, when I did commit myself fully, I started to have a far greater appreciation of the work and sacrifices she had put in to be one of the best athletes in the world.’