“The greatest run in the history of British distance running, man or woman, any time, any place, anywhere – that’s the best I’ve seen and it’s better than any I’ve ever read about.”
Brendan Foster is in awe in the commentary box. Liz McColgan of Dundee Hawkhill Harriers has made history in front of his eyes. She has battled through Tokyo’s heat and humidity to dominate one of the finest women’s long-distance fields ever assembled.
Nine months after giving birth to daughter Eilish, McColgan is a 10,000m world champion.
Though the settings changed down the years, running was a constant in her life. She ran every day from the age of 11.
Instead of a starting pistol, however, her runs back then were signalled by the door slamming shut at her council home on the Whitfield estate, Dundee. Running was an escape for her, both literally and figuratively, from the harsh surroundings and circumstances of her formative years.
At 16, she was placed in a jute factory as part of a junior training scheme, clocking in at 5.30am, but Liz Lynch, as she was then, was already determined to put long-distance between herself and Whitfield.
A year prior, her first coach Harry Bennett had told her that an Olympic gold was within her grasp, but here she was breathing in dust and dirt from the fabrics at the factory. For her own sake, and for the sake of her future family, she had to get away.
