Eilish McColgan hopes to break Paula Radcliffe’s 22-year-old British record in the London Marathon, but she doesn’t expect to achieve it in her debut race.
The defending Commonwealth Games 10,000m champion is set to run her debut at the 26.2-mile race in April, two years later than she had initially planned to compete. An injury delayed her 2023 plans, and she thinks that “rushing” her marathon training caused the injuries that kept her from running for nearly six months.
Now, McColgan, also a four-time Olympian, believes she must settle into this “new chapter” of her career before breaking Radcliffe’s record of two hours, 15 minutes, and 25 seconds.
The athlete expressed, “It’s so unrealistic to think I’m going to go in and break Paula Radcliffe’s record on my first attempt… That’s nonsense. It just isn’t going to happen. But do I think I’m capable of getting down to those times in the future? Absolutely… But I’m playing more of a long game, and just taking things month by month and year by year rather than trying to rush things.”
McColgan’s best before the setback
McColgan felt she was in “the best shape of her life” before her injury, having just broken Ms Radcliffe’s 21-year-old British 10,000m record and improved her British half-marathon record in Berlin.
After her knee surgery, she is now focused on road racing. However, the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, which won’t have road events, is still on her mind.
She said, “I learned a lot from 2023. Now I just want to make sure that I build things up gradually, do things properly, and I just want longevity in my career…I still believe that this next Olympic cycle I can be at my best. I still think I can get faster over 5k and 10k.”
“But really the marathon is a long-term project. I am going to just try to learn as much as I can from this process, and then try to implement that over the next few years to see how I bridge the gap towards a 2:09 or whatever crazy time they’ve run by then,” she added.