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DAY 70 in the Big Sister house and it’s pretty much like every day for Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie.
Stretching, rehab and running. Plenty of running. And walking Jemma’s dog Dolly.
They’re best mates off the track and refuse to call themselves rivals on it. Living and training together in Muir’s Glasgow home since coronavirus forced the world to hit the pause button has helped both Scots cope without athletics.
Not that it’s really very far away. When you have two world-class athletes isolating together, it’s going to dominate their daily lives, even in these restrictive times.
And it’s all designed to have them hitting the track running when their sport returns.
“We’re trying to use this as a camp but in Glasgow,” double
BY DAVID McCARTHY European indoor gold medalist Muir said. “We live together for weeks at a time at camp so it’s fine.
“We get up, let Jemma’s dog Dolly out, do some rehab and stretching then exercise and training for the day. We’re doing tonnes more rehabby stuff as we don’t have access to our physios and we’ve got some gym stuff in.
“We do a weekly food shopping and we cook our meals together. Then it’s a hot chocolate and movie night every night –working our way through lots of TV series, so it’s pretty chilled to be honest.”
Sharing the same coach, Andy Young, working together in the same training group means Muir and Reekie see themselves more as team-mates than rivals but with the common goal to be in the best shape when racing returns.
Muir told Scottishathletics: “We’re not race competitive at training. We don’t try to beat each other all the way.
“If I’m feeling tired or whatever, I know I’ve still got to train at world-class level because Jemma is with me.
“Having someone to hang on to, or right on your tail, can be really motivating. It helps an awful lot more than just doing it by yourself. It has been so helpful to have Jemma progress to a point where we can run together and we are both getting faster.”
Five years younger than Muir, 22-year-old Reekie catapulted herself into the elite bracket this year with stunning British records in the 800m and mile. She admits Laura has been a massive influence. Reekie said: “It made it all real for me when I joined the group and saw up close how hard Laura trains. “Athletics-wise, she is good at everything. She is good at speed, she is good at speed-endurance, and she has the endurance for fast 5k sessions, too. “She can still knock out a crazy-fast 800m and a crazy-fast 5000m. I respect so much the way she has managed to balance things and do a uni degree. “For me, it has been athletics, athletics, athletics but Laura has had two really big careers and at one stage was doing them right together. “That shows the strength of her mentality. She was still delivering really strong performances while her uni finals were on. “We spend so much time together that we knew it [living in lockdown] would work well. ●The full Muir/Reekie interview can be viewed at www.scottish-athletics.org.uk
LAURA MUIR