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With records and medals in mind, Muir plans to dig deeper than ever in 2023

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She knows how to hurt. To run what Laura Muir has run, to win what she’s won, that’s something of a non-negotiable. But still, even among the most elite echelon of middle-distance talent, few are as well known for their courage as much as their class.

If there’s a trait that most associate with the 29-year-old Scot – beyond the grace she exhibits as she floats across the track, feet skipping off the surface – then it's grit. That steely resolve is well-known to her rivals who, when racing Muir, tend to be brought to a place few want to go at the most difficult point of a 1500m. 

Muir’s ability to suffer, to dig deep, then deeper, is a product of both nature and nurture. She was always good at it. Just never quite this good.

“Until you go to that place, you don’t know,” she says. 

That place is the limit, the moment you can hear the body’s distress calls, its cries to slow down, but choose not to listen.

“I don’t think I’d really experienced that until I started to be coached by Andy [Young],” says Muir. “He taught me you can run harder and faster. Your body is giving out and saying, ‘no, no,’ but you can. It’s a fine balance and I have gone too hard too soon in races and died, but you don’t know until you try. The more you try it, the more your body gets used to it, adapts, and you become physiologically stronger.”

Muir is a four-time European champion indoors, a two-time champion outdoors; she’s an Olympic silver medallist, a world bronze medallist and ahead of next month’s European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul, she looks poised to add to that tally. 

“I hope [to race in Istanbul]. As long as I continue to train consistently, don’t get any injuries, don’t get sick. I honestly don’t know what distance and if there is a double, I don’t know what double. We’ll probably make the decision quite late.”

Muir is well versed in such a busy schedule, having won the 1500/3000m double at the 2019 edition in Glasgow and at the 2017 edition in Belgrade.

Trying for the triple-double would make for another packed weekend in Istanbul, full of the familiar pain of championship racing, though, truth be told, that’s not too different to what Muir encounters every day.

Low mileage yields big results

“Our philosophy is quality over quantity,” says Muir. “We don’t do a huge amount of mileage but anything we do, we do it hard and we do it fast.”

Muir’s training volume is relatively low compared to her peers: she maxes out at 60 miles (97km) a week, with three hard sessions. The other days, however, are not just leisurely recovery jogs, with Muir clipping along at quicker than 6:00 per mile (3:44 per kilometre). 

Why does she go against the grain of most world-class distance runners? The roots of that go back to her first year at the University of Glasgow when Muir, then aged 18, started working with Young. “In running years, she was much younger,” recalls Young. “I had a bit of a [training] model: three workouts a week and not too much double days.”

That first semester, Muir was given a GPS watch by a national coach and began, for the first time, tracking the pace of her daily runs, and Young was surprised to see that “all her runs were fast.” While many coaches would have slowed her down, raised her volume, Young could see that Muir was actually recovering between her key workouts. She was also improving rapidly.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” says Young. “That was working, so we didn’t change it.”

Their approach is not so much about counting the miles, but making the miles count. “She only does two double days, so there’s a lot of recovery built in,” says Young. “There’s plenty of mornings off and a complete day off every week, so it allows for that intensity.”

 

Young sees every day the drive Muir brings to her training, but he also feels something is held in reserve for race day, noting with a smile that Muir has never thrown up after a workout. “She’s never been at that point where her body is overwhelmed in lactic acid – ‘someone please chop off my arms because they’re on fire,’” he says. “So I think there’s more scope there in training on that real intense, short stuff. But in racing, she pushes herself, gives her absolute everything – to the absolute limit.”

Much like her speed or endurance, her threshold or VO2 max, Muir has realised over the years that her ability to suffer is a trainable thing.

“I’ve learnt to run harder,” she says. “Before, you don’t really know where your limits are, and I’ve pushed that again and again and again. It’s learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable. It’s hard, hard work, but I enjoy it at the same time.”

Years like the one she just had make it all the more enjoyable. 

Muir won 1500m silver at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, 1500m gold and 800m bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and 1500m gold at the European Athletics Championships in Munich.

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She finished her season with victory at the Fifth Avenue Mile in New York, catching the field by surprise with a vicious surge just before halfway, daring everyone to go with her or die trying. None of them tried, and Muir – legs wobbling, face grimacing, arms pumping – came home a clear winner in a course record of 4:14.8.

“This time last year, my aims were to win a medal at all three [championships] and I did that, and for two of them to be gold, to do a double at Commonwealths, to do what I did and be healthy the whole time, it was a bit crazy,” she says.

But those championships also took a heavy toll. 

“It beat up my body a bit, and I had a couple of little niggles in October, and didn’t manage to get back into [training] properly until November. It’s been tough, but I’m in a good spot now.”

That’s been clear in recent weeks. Muir clocked 8:40.34 for 3000m at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston before winning the Wanamaker Mile at last weekend’s Millrose Games in New York, surrendering the lead on the penultimate lap before digging in again, finding more, to win in 4:20.15.

Unfinished business with the 1000m...and 5000m

At the World Athletics Indoor Tour final in Birmingham on 25 February, Muir will attempt to set her first world record, for the indoor 1000m, which is currently held by Maria Mutola at 2:30.94. Looking to outdoors, Muir remains undecided about a double at the World Championships in Budapest, and feels the same for the Paris Olympics a year later.

A hint of her intentions might be found in her goals for the season, with Muir planning to run a fast 5000m, describing her current PB of 14:49.12 as “annoying”. Over her specialist distance, 1500m, she knows the athlete to beat is Faith Kipyegon, and Muir doesn’t expect that to change over the next 18 months.

How can she go about toppling the Kenyan great?

“I just gotta train as best I can,” says Muir. “She’s the best there’s ever been so it’s tough, but I think there’s a couple of seconds I can shave off my PB [of 3:54.50] which will get me closer. I just have to try to be the best I can be, and hopefully that gets me closer.”

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Muir knows too that adding to her tally of European titles is not a foregone conclusion. “The European scene is getting more and more competitive, which makes my job harder,” she says. “But it’s great to see.”

The weeks ahead will provide more chances to hone her craft, trying to perfect the art of the full-blooded, flat-out racing style with which she’s become synonymous.

“It’s that balance to know how far you can push it and not go too hard, too soon,” she says. “I’m definitely still not the master of it – it’s [about] being mentally strong enough to keep pushing.”

Something Muir does better than most. 

Cathal Dennehy for European Athletics




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