Scot runs 30:23 to miss Paula Radcliffe’s national mark by two seconds at Vitality London 10,000

Little over a fortnight ago Eilish McColgan was struggling to recover from a bout of Covid. She felt flat and her track season did not look promising.

Yet the past two weeks things have clicked into place and on Monday (May 2) she produced a powerful run to win by more than a minute in a time of 30:23 that was only two seconds outside Paula Radcliffe’s British record set in Puerto Rico 19 years ago.

The previous weekend McColgan had set a British 5km record of 14:45 at an Asics event in Malaga. So coming into the Vitality London 10,000 expectations were high and as she stormed through the finish outside Buckingham Palace she smashed her PB of 30:52 with runner-up Jess Piasecki clocking 31:28 followed by Sam Harrison in 31:44, Clara Evans in 32:35 and Steph Twell in 33:45.

“It’s a huge PB,” she said. “It’s so close to the record. The fact I could see it, was frustrating. I’m a bit gutted but I know it’s there so that’s really exciting.”

McColgan was watched by her mother, Liz, in person for the first time since the 2019 World Championships in Doha. Her boyfriend Mike Rimmer also had a good view of the race as he attempted to follow her around the course riding a “Boris bike” that he hired on the morning of the race.

McColgan said she exceeded her goal of around 30:30 and added: “I need to be more confident and aggressive at the start of the race. I’ve had a challenging couple of months coming back from. Training has been so flat until the last few weeks and all of the work that I’ve put in, it’s only just coming out now in the last couple of weeks.

“It’s only in the last two weeks that I’ve started to feel normal again. I thought I wasn’t going to have a season but now I think I’m going to have a great season. I’d like to run 30:10-30:15 on the track and that’s the biggest goal for me.”

McColgan will race at the Night of the 10,000m PBs on May 14 in north London. Beyond that she believes tackling the triple crown of major track championships is possible but adds: “Worlds is always a priority as it’s competing at the highest level, but the Commonwealth Games is special as it’s the only time I can compete in a Scottish vest and it’s at home in Birmingham, so for me it’s a bigger goal than the Europeans.”

Sammy Kinghorn won the women’s wheelchair race in 24:45 with Eden Rainbow-Cooper second and Shelly Woods third.