Winter of CONTENTMENT
Muir is in wonderland as she sets out to scale twin peaks of academic excellence and sporting supremacy in 2018
HAPPINESS this Christmas for Laura Muir was a seasonal jog through the snow-caked streets of Milnathort with nowhere immediately to be and no pressure placed on her industrious shoulders. For a fortnight at least, the double European indoor champion got to exhale — and relax.
Off the treadmill that has spun almost non-stop since the two continental triumphs last March that finally brought the Perthshire prospect major titles.
Off the clock after combining lung-busting preparation and competition in athletics with the equally gruelling grind of concluding her veterinary degree through a series of rotations and placements in her final year, some of which have compelled her to complete a night shift before squeezing in the daily run prescribed by her coach Andy Young.
‘It’s been tough,’ she confirms. ‘At the time, you just get through it, you’ve got to do the training. You’ve got to do the vet stuff. It’s only now that spell is over I can look back and see how crazy it was. It was very, very tough but I survived.
‘Andy was great in switching my schedule around, fitting in runs at different times of the day, just so I could cram it in when I could. And I’ve managed to reach the end of the year in a good shape while keeping up my studies at the same time.’
The relentless life’s loss has been her family’s temporary gain in finding two precious weeks to head homeward and into normality.
But after cramming in a spell at altitude in the South African bolthole of Secunda before a dash home on Christmas Eve, Muir has not dropped too many gears as she prepares to open her indoor season at next weekend’s GAA Miler Meet in Glasgow before heading outside to headline the British team at the Simplyhealth Great Edinburgh XCountry on January 13.
By then, double duties will have recommenced. ‘I start back with anaesthesia,’ she reveals. No traumas, no trepidation, not with the finishing line of graduation at Glasgow University in sight next summer.
‘It’s exciting,’ the 24-year-old observes. ‘I’ve spent so long in the classroom learning these things. Now I’m putting it into practice, which is good.
‘But it’s a bit scary. You have the vets helping you a lot and standing beside you. But at the end of the day, you have to learn how to make these decisions for real because that’s what I’ll be doing in a few months time.’
It has been said that, in the age of Lottery funding and scientific support, elite performers no longer make ‘sacrifices’ but instead simply make ‘choices’. This rationale fits Muir’s decision to prioritise ticking the final boxes needed for her degree over the trek Down Under for the Commonwealth Games.
A blow, sure, for Scotland’s medal hopes on the Gold Coast even if the fourth place she achieved in the 1,500metres in August’s World Championships in London suggests only global medals will now elevate her status still further.
‘It’s tough to miss it,’ she admits. ‘It’s a great opportunity to go and compete. But I knew what the dates were and the clash that it would cause with vet school.
‘That’s so important to me — and I don’t forget that without going to uni, I might not have got into the sport in the same way I did. So while I’d love to be in Gold Coast, I’m really excited about what I do have on and I know there will be other opportunities.’
Once hat and gown are stashed away, the year’s on-track goals will centre on the European Championships in Berlin. Nothing would please her more than to be a victorious vet, two indivisible parts of the formula that has taken Muir to the verge of anointment as first-class.
‘I was saying to a colleague recently how I stood on the start line at an Olympic Games with millions and millions of people watching,’ declares Muir. ‘Same in London with a packed stadium cheering me on.
‘It’s very similar when you get a case — there’s a lot of pressure at the time but you just have to be methodical about it and just stay calm.
‘And running has taught me a lot about dealing with those kind of situations — and vice versa.’