After a successful year competing at her first World Athletic Championships, Erin Wallace has her sights set on the upcoming home Commonwealth Games.
For as long as she can remember, sport has been part of her life. Growing up in Glasgow with parents who were swimmers, Erin was always destined for the world of sport.
Describing herself as a ‘sporty kid’, her childhood was first filled with swimming lessons and then a swimming club. By the time she reached school, she was already exercising more than most of her peers.
“I was always quite a sporty kid,” she said. “So when it came to cross-country, I was just a bit better at it.”
This early edge proved advantageous. At around nine years old, after a local cross-country race, a coach from a nearby running club approached her and encouraged her to try out.
The impact of Jessica Ennis-Hill
While she has competed across a range of disciplines, including a spell as a triathlete, middle-distance running has become her home. Erin now specialises in both the 800 and 1500 metres. Despite this, her biggest sporting idol didn’t specialise in these events. Like many others, Erin was inspired by Jessica Ennis-Hill and the magic of London 2012 and Super Saturday.
“I just remember 2012 so vividly, and her winning the gold. She was the poster girl in the lead up and then actually delivered,” she recalled. “I think for a lot of girls our age, Jessica Ennis was number one.”
Super Saturday, which saw Ennis-Hill win Olympic Gold, was watched by over 16 million people across the country and has acted as a benchmark for aspiring athletes.
Now more than a decade on from that historic night, Erin finds herself competing in major championships. This winter brought about a personal best (PB) in the 1500m, even if she feels it only scratches the surface of what she’s capable of.
“It was an indoor PB, but my overall PB is actually from four years ago”, she explained. “I had quite a disruptive January, we were in South Africa and it was quite a disruptive training camp.
“I was quite relieved afterwards when it did go well. A PB is a PB, I’m definitely not annoyed about that, but I think there’s maybe a bit more in the tank.”
Home Commonwealth Games
That sense of unfinished business feeds perfectly into what promises to be an exciting summer. With the Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow, Erin has the rare opportunity to compete at a major tournament in her home city.
“That is going to be my big aim in the summer,” she says. “We also have Europeans, which from an athletics perspective is probably a bigger deal.
“But because the Commonwealth Games is in Glasgow, that will definitely be more of a target for me. The stadium it’s going to be held in is where I trained, so it’ll mean so much to me. I’m looking forward to that.”
The idea of a home crowd carries extra emotional weight after missing out on racing at the World Outdoor Championships in Glasgow in 2024.
“I wasn’t far off making the team, I was kind of close to running the time, but I’d been aiming for it for like two years.”
Erin hopes the journey to the Commonwealth Games will be more smooth sailing.
She said: “I’m just hoping everything goes smoothly this year and I can actually run in front of a home crowd because you don’t get to do it often. It’d be special.”
Can youth success be replicated on the senior stage?
The 25-year-old already knows what success on the Commonwealth stage feels like, having won gold in the 1500m at the Youth Commonwealth Games in 2017.
First senior World Championships
Last year marked another milestone for Erin, as she was selected to represent Great Britain at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo. She was unable to advance to the semi-finals of the 1500m, but ensured the tournament would serve as a ‘learning experience’ moving forwards.
“It was so cool, like packed stadiums. I think there was 50/60,000 people there, it was just a really cool experience.”
Despite extremely hot temperatures, Erin was keen not to take her selection for granted.
She said: “It was very hot and humid, but luckily we were running at night, so for the race it wasn’t too bad. It was more training there that was so hard.
“But because it’s so hard to get onto one of those teams, you need to take advantage of it.”
Joining M11 Track Club
Much of her recent development has come through her move to Manchester and her involvement with one of the most exciting groups in athletics. She began working with Trevor Painter in 2022, before fully relocating from Glasgow in 2023 after her graduation.
Now part of the M11 track club, Erin is coached by Trevor and his wife Jenny Meadows – a former runner herself. The club is named after the M11 postcode district in east Manchester where Sportcity is located, their main training centre.
“The group has grown so much,”, she reflected. “When I started in 2022, the only two pros were me and Keely [Hodgkinson]. Whereas now we have like 15 or something like that.”
The group, widely recognised for producing world-class middle-distance runners, is built around a simple philosophy: intense training, but with a strong supportive network. Trevor spoke in an interview about the importance of creating a community, and that without this belonging, athletes cannot perform at their best.
Erin notes that she feels this balance every day.
She said: “Definitely the tough training programme. Like with him [Trevor], every day is quite hard, it’s not for the faint hearted.
“You need to have the fun side of it otherwise we’d just all be miserable probably all the time.”
Relocating to Manchester
After 23 years in one city, the move South wasn’t easy for Erin. She suddenly found herself away from friends and family, living a lifestyle that doesn’t always align with an ‘ordinary’ social life.
“Our job is kind of weird,” she said. “If you moved to London for a corporate job, you’d interact with loads of different people.
Whereas we’re kind of small and have this weird lifestyle that’s not really compatible with going out, so in a way it’s hard, but really nice because there’s a fair few of us now.”
As part of the club, Erin and her fellow athletes spend three months of the year in South Africa, escaping the British weather and building fitness in warmer conditions.
“We kind of all meet to train like every day [out there],” she said. “Then in Manchester, we meet like three or four times a week, but we’ll run by ourselves and go to the gym by ourselves.”
‘I have the best training partners in the world’
Alongside Erin, M11 contains several other high profile middle-distance runners including: Georgia Hunter-Bell, Keely Hodgkinson and Sarah Healy.
She said: “They’re all world class, and that’s only listing three. It definitely brings you on every day, especially to see people around you doing all the same things you’re doing.
Hopefully I can do what they’re doing one day.”