Liz McColgan: “Coaching is about developing life skills that make a difference to people”

Former 10,000m world champion and Olympic silver medallist talks about her journey from athlete to mentor

Former world 10,000m champion and Olympic silver medallist Liz McColgan is coach to daughter Eilish, the reigning Commonwealth 10,000m champion and a number of British record-holder. She can also be a coach at Doha Athletics Membership, which she arrange when she moved to Qatar in 2013.  

McColgan additionally works as Director of Sporting Academy Programmes at Qatar Basis and is chargeable for growing its Creating Pathways Programme. Launched as a part of the Basis’s FIFA World Cup legacy plans, the Programme – which contributes to Qatar’s 2030 imaginative and prescient to reinforce and construct girls’s sports activities participation – goals to encourage women aged 12-16 to play sport, highlighting the significance of train, diet and general wellbeing. 

How did you get into teaching?

My coach Harry Bennett [at Dundee Hawkhill Harriers] died once I was 17, so I coached myself for just about all of my profession. I most likely knew much more about coaching than different athletes round me on the time as a result of I actually delved into what endurance working was. I’d go as much as folks like George Gandy and Harry Wilson and ask questions, they usually’d be actually supportive and useful.

The primary individual I coached was Collette Fagan. She received a European juniors 5000m bronze in 2001, simply earlier than I retired myself. Working with Collette made me realise how a lot I loved the problem of attempting to suit a programme round another person and determining methods to get the very best out of her. I knew it was one thing I needed to do.

As I progressed by way of my retirement, Eilish was coming onto the scene. She was 11 or 12 when she first bought requested to race cross nation by her PE instructor and he or she liked it. She’d solely been working about 4 or 5 months once I ended up teaching on the membership and really rapidly I developed a extremely good group [at Dundee Hawkhill Harriers].

I later determined to begin up an “elite” membership which I funded myself. I used to be very lucky that we ended up with a number of nice children, together with a number of the finest younger distance runners within the UK on the time. 

Who was your best teaching affect?

My important affect was Harry. After I was younger he’d throw books at me to learn like The Loneliness of the Lengthy Distance Runner, or books on coaching and the science behind the game. 

After I was coaching he’d say: “Why do you suppose we’re doing this session?”, so he was educating me all alongside and I discovered an terrible lot. I feel the premise of all my teaching comes from him and the trial and error we went by way of once I was youthful.

I do know endurance inside out now. That’s not solely as a result of I’ve examine it, however as a result of I participated in it and self-coached myself to the best stage. That doesn’t imply you must be a runner to be a superb coach, however if you’re a runner and also you’ve completed what I’ve completed I feel it provides you a little bit of an edge. You’ve gotten a greater understanding of the way it feels while you’re completely knackered and also you’re requested to do one other rep and also you suppose: “I can’t do it”. You know the way to work by way of that psychological course of since you’ve been by way of that your self. 

From a training perspective, what have been your first impressions while you moved to Doha and the way have issues modified since then?

I’d given some motivational talks in worldwide colleges and I rapidly realised there was an actual hole available in the market for youths wanting to participate in athletics. Quite a lot of children needed to run however there have been no alternatives for them, so I created Doha Athletics Membership. 

There’s a number of expertise right here, and now that funding is being put in place to develop the Creating Pathways Programme we’re in a extremely good place. We’re creating after-school golf equipment which result in sporting academies. We’ll then expertise ID women who’re eligible to compete for Qatar nationwide groups and accomplice with the federation to develop girls-only (elite) hubs with age-appropriate teaching and improvement. It’s a holistic strategy that features mentorship and creation of ladies’s-only competitors. Quite a lot of it’s about eradicating boundaries. 

We’re additionally creating the area’s first elite girls’s sports activities academy – a sports activities facility for girls, run by girls – by revamping the Training Metropolis Stadium [built for the 2022 World Cup]. By growing the Creating Pathways Programme we’re getting ready athletically-gifted women for its opening in 2027.

We’re even going into universities; there’s a bunch of ladies who would have liked to be on a programme like this however they didn’t get the chance. We wish to carry these older women again and assist them get teaching {qualifications} or to develop into referees and umpires. 

You’ve bought to have a place to begin, and the place to begin is now. What we’re attempting to do is construct participation so that everybody can see the advantages that come from sport. Not everybody can get a gold medal, however everybody can profit from being energetic, particularly socially.

As soon as we get the degrees of participation and we’ve bought protected and fit-for-purpose locations for girls to coach and play sport, then that adjustments what they bring about to future generations by way of what’s acceptable, how good sport is for you, and what you may get out of it. You’ll finally have fitter, more healthy and happier women coming by way of and over time, by way of better numbers, you’ve bought extra of a chance to discover a higher normal of athlete.

For a coach who loves being trackside, how do you navigate the challenges of distant teaching with Eilish?

It really works properly, though I admit that I do miss the attention contact. I like watching an athlete like Eilish, it’s like poetry in movement when she strikes as a result of it’s easy. You can too see if it is advisable change issues, for instance if she’s drained. Working remotely, you miss that, however the good factor working on-line with Eilish – and it doesn’t work with everyone – is the superb quantity of knowledge she provides me. It’s simply clicked, perhaps that’s as a result of I’m her mom as properly, however the quantity of knowledge is fixed and it really works. 

Eilish can also be so in-tune along with her physique we all know if she’s bought a sniffle two days earlier than she’s bought it. We’ve labored a lot collectively we see the warning indicators earlier than they arrive. The one factor I’m lacking is definitely seeing her working and that’s the place Michael [Eilish’s partner Michael Rimmer] is available in; he sees her working, they usually ship a number of movies which helps. Know-how makes on-line teaching slightly bit simpler.

Do you ever conflict, and as a father or mother and coach how do you handle that?

We don’t all the time agree. I didn’t need her to do the Europeans [last summer] and I didn’t really suppose she ought to go to the Olympics, however she’s an grownup along with her personal thoughts. 

Teaching through the years can also be like a mentorship and also you’ve bought to take heed to your athlete. Eilish needed to do 4 Olympics. I used to be like: “Why does it matter?”, however it mattered to her and I needed to respect that. I knew that she wasn’t in PB form. She hadn’t raced and generally you want races to click on. She understood all that, however it was essential to her to be there and he or she deserved it. She’d run the time and he or she’d been chosen by proper. Now she will be able to say she’s been to 4 Olympics and he or she’s the primary Scottish monitor and discipline athlete to attain that, so I’m happy with her.

Folks have completely different motivations and targets. Eilish is completely completely different from me. If I couldn’t run my finest and get a medal I wouldn’t go, however that’s not Eilish, she’s extra emotional, she’s bought extra empathy, and he or she cares about issues in a means that I most likely wouldn’t. As a coach you must assist that. All of us went to Paris to assist her and he or she ran properly. She was additionally there for Megan [Keith], which was a pleasant finish to her Olympics.

How would you describe your teaching philosophy?

I don’t suppose you’re a born endurance runner. I’d say sprinters are born, however I feel you may develop a extremely long way runner through the years by way of laborious work in the event that they’ve bought the precise mentality and want. After I’m athletes I by no means search for the quickest folks, I have a look at how they transfer and their headspace as a result of generally you simply have to be that little bit cussed to be a superb endurance runner. 

What do you get pleasure from most about teaching?

One of many best children I ever got here throughout was Graeme Oudney. I noticed him just lately and to see him because the individual he’s now, having labored with him for therefore a few years, was actually particular. 

Some athletes simply have a spot in your coronary heart and also you all the time keep in mind them. That’s what evokes me with working, it’s not simply concerning the coaching, it’s concerning the individual and the journey they’re on. 

That’s what I get pleasure from now. You see women who’re so completely happy to run as a result of they’ve been given the chance to run, not as a result of they’re nice at it however as a result of they wish to do it. Some coaches lose sight of what teaching is. It’s not about gold medals and profitable large races – don’t get me fallacious, it’s superb when that occurs – however that’s not what teaching is about. Teaching is about growing life expertise that make a distinction to folks, whether or not that results in them being an Olympic champion or working a Race for Life. That’s why I coach. 

What’s the very best piece of recommendation you’d give to a brand new or aspiring coach?

Coach for the precise causes. Develop your talent set, be taught what your occasion is about, and be very trustworthy and direct concerning the capacity of your athletes and what you suppose they’re able to. Do not forget that the recommendation you’re giving to somebody might change their lives, so be certain that it’s the precise recommendation.  

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