Muir chases the boys to kick off new season
T24-year-old from Milnathort took her first steps of another typically jam-packed year. Having spent her days since August’s World Athletics Championships in London mixing gruelling work experience sessions for the final year of her veterinary medicine degree at the University of Glasgow with warm weather training in South Africa, it says something for the strides she has made in recent years that the quest to find genuine competition for her in her native land led to a men’s 3,000m race at the Glasgow Athletics Association Miler Meet. In the final reckoning, only four of the field were able to finish ahead of her, led home by her new training partner Sol Sweeney in a time of 8:19.03.
Muir was home, claiming the Scottish female 3,000m title, in 8.37;21, fully 11 seconds outside her record time when winning the European Indoor Championships last year over this distance, but all things considered this wasn’t the worst way to get 2018 under way. Her fellow Fifer Eilidh Doyle, who ran a PB for third place in the men’s 200m, was another high-profile Scottish athlete engaging in a battle of the sexes, while earlier in the day Fiona Matheson improved on her own over-55, 3,000m world record. “It was quite tough,” admitted Muir.
“The first kilometre was quite fast and I maybe got a bit excited at the start – which made the end quite painful!
“But I think I’m quite happy with it, overall, even if I’d like to run faster. The guys are definitely fast, so I knew it was going to be tough,” she said. “It’s great to get this under my belt – and brilliant to see Sol win, as well.
“My training has been going really well this year, even though it’s been difficult over the past few weeks, battling against the ice and snow. But I’m excited with what my training’s showing.
“Certainly, come March, I should be ready to run something much quicker.”