Laura Muir: 'I don't like taking anything. I don't even drink coffee'
Donald McRae
Laura Muir at the Tooting Bec athletics track. 'I can count the paracetamols I've taken on one hand. I don't like taking anything.' Photograph: Tom Jenkins/Guardian
The middle-distance runner and qualified vet says she would readily be drug-tested every day and believes she can win at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020
@donaldgmcrae
Mon 8 Oct 2018 08.43 EDT First published on Mon 8 Oct 2018 07.30 EDT
It is a long way from Tooting to Tokyo but, on an autumnal morning in south-west London, Laura Muir can see the path stretching out before her.
After her best year as a 1500m runner the road to winning a medal at the Olympic Games seems much clearer to the Scottish veterinarian.
In the midst of graduating as a vet earlier this year Muir has won two medals at the world indoor championships, become the European champion and secured the prestigious Diamond League title. The world championships in Doha next year will provide a new challenge before Muir attempts to win an Olympic medal, with gold being her target, in Tokyo in 2020.
"Obviously the pinnacle is to win the world championships, to win the Olympics," Muir says as she sits near the finish line at the Tooting Bec athletics track where her dreams of glory are spoken of softly in an understated. "I really think I've got the potential to do that. It's going to be very tough but I just want to keep it going."
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Last month, having already cruised to the European title, Muir produced the most impressive win of her career in Brussels when she beat three of the four fastest women in the world this year to become Diamond League champion.
Having allowed Ethiopia's Gudaf Tesgay to open up a lead, Muir reeled her in and then, with just over a lap left, she surged ahead and never looked as if she would be caught by a world‑class field in a time of 3min 57.85sec.
"This year the Europeans was the main focus because you want to win championship medals," Muir says, "but it felt important to win the Diamond League because it's kind of a world final. There aren't any world championships this year so that win was really special. It was a big statement. The time was good but the race slowed for a couple of hundred metres and we lost a second or so. We could have run 3.56."
Laura Muir celebrates as she crosses the line to win the 1500m at this year's European Athletics Championships in Berlin. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images
The 25-year-old Scot ran her personal best of 3min 55.22sec in Paris in 2016. It is the 16th fastest time in history but it is reasonable to wonder how much higher she would climb if the times of athletes who have been subject to doubt about their doping history are set aside. Four of the faster times were set in the Eastern bloc during the cold war when state-sponsored doping was rife. Nine Chinese athletes are in the top 15 and their times in the 1990s were recorded under the infamous coach Ma Junren, though he denies ever employing performance‑enhancing drugs. Yet most of these runners have never failed a drug test and they remain in the record books. All Muir can do is run hard and clean and hope that anti-doping measures ensure the world championships and Olympics are drug-free in her event.
"It's important to me," Muir says, "because I'm a very moral person and I want to be the best I can as a clean athlete. There are all those names above me but I am super‑duper proud to have that time because I know it's 100% me."
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Does Muir, who ends most races looking spent and stretched out on her back because she has dredged up every last sliver of energy, feel disheartened by suspicions about some of her rivals? "It is hard but there's nothing you can do about it. I can just run my best race and hopefully that wins me a medal. If it doesn't and I get awarded it later on [if a medal-winner fails a subsequent drug test], then at least I eventually get that recognition. But it's not the same. You don't get that lap of honour or stand on the podium.
"We know these things are going on but I try not to think about it too much because you get weighed down. We need to look at it but it's important for me just to focus on myself. Things are going to happen, and come out, but the only thing I know 100% for certain is my set-up."
When Muir finished seventh in the 2016 Olympic final she was openly dubious about the credibility of the winner, Genzebe Dibaba. "I have my doubts," Muir replied when asked if she trusted the new Olympic champion. Dibaba's coach, Jama Aden, was being held in Spain after the police raided his hotel and discovered various banned substances, including EPO. Aden continues to insist on his innocence and Dibaba has never tested positive and stressed that she was "crystal clean from doping".
Muir said: "You know a tree by the fruit that it bears. If a tree bears sour fruit, then the fruit around it are likely infected."
The case against Aden continues and El País reported recently that the coach could be jailed for four and a half years if he is extradited from Qatar and if found guilty at trial. Muir has not been following the protracted legal case but her rivalry with Dibaba intensified six months ago when, at the world indoors in Birmingham, she won silver and bronze behind the Olympic champion in the 1500m and 3,000m.
Muir and rival Genzebe Dibaba. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
Relations between Muir and Dibaba are strained – but has she tried to discuss the situation with the Ethiopian? "There's never been the opportunity to speak to her. She keeps to herself and doesn't interact with many athletes."
Muir tries to avoid taking any medication in an attempt to be totally natural and clean. "I can count the number of paracetamol I've taken in my life on one hand. I don't like taking anything. There is medication out there that is perfectly fine to take – like paracetamol – but if something is sore I don't want to mask it. Yeah, you can take something if your achilles flares up but I like to work through the pain.
"Even with protein shakes I take them between the rounds of a championship only because it's important to recover. During and after training sessions I always just have water and a banana. I don't have any special shakes. I don't even drink coffee. I tried it once but it made my heart race."
Muir sounds scrupulous but how often she is tested by anti-doping officials? "Sometimes you can be tested three times a week. Then a month can pass. In Berlin, at the European championships, I was tested when I arrived and then after the race. So it can be multiple times in a few days or once every month. I'm happy to be tested every day of the year but the problem is when you don't feel those same principles are being applied to everyone else."
Some countries, including Ethiopia, do not allow anti-doping officials entry without prior warning and, as Muir says: "That's worrying. If you can get a protocol in place for everybody, so everyone's getting tested equally, it would definitely be the right step."
Muir is admirable in remaining true to herself. She has no wish to create a "brand" or widen commercial opportunities. "It's a different culture these days, isn't it," she says with a shrug. "Everything's online and people's appearances are deemed more important. Yeah, I like to dress up and have nice hair and make-up – but there's a time and a place. I don't want to be like that 24/7. I enjoy training and getting muddy and wet, hair all over the place. I don't want to become something I'm not. I'm just a normal girl from Scotland that likes running."
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It seems apt, considering her wholesome character and background as a vet, that Muir should launch the first Simplyhealth Canine Run on 20 October – a 2.5km run for dogs and their owners. "It's great because Simplyhealth have got ties with the veterinarian community and we're promoting health benefits for dogs and people. As a vet you see lots of overweight pets. Hopefully running with their dogs will spur people to get fit as well."
Muir was a dedicated veterinarian student – so much so that, even when her World Indoor Championship travel plans were disrupted by severe snow last winter, she kept studying. It needed a £1500 taxi ride from Glasgow to Birmingham to make it to the worlds but Muir's studies kept her calm. "I'd been working that morning so I was looking at my notes on the way down and had no time to think about missing the championships. I was just thinking: 'I'm running today. We'll get there somehow.' On Monday morning I was back at school. I couldn't overthink."
Muir in the final of the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she ran the third lap too hard and faded to finish seventh. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
Yet she ran against Dibaba in Birmingham with a more measured tactical approach. At the Rio Olympics, in contrast, she had run the third lap too hard and faded while chasing gold. She seemed much more pragmatic tactically when securing her medals in the world indoors. "I now know you need plans a, b, c and d. Having more experience meant I did really well tactically and a silver and a bronze was really good. But getting my degree was the important thing this year."
Will a complete focus on athletics boost her performances still further? "I don't really know yet because most years I'd finish my exams in May and then focus on athletics for the summer – and go back to vet school in September. At the moment it feels normal. But, yeah, in the coming months I'll be training full time. It's exciting to see what I can do with the extra time.
"I'd always wanted to be a vet when I was younger. I never thought about being a professional athlete or winning the Olympics. I never dreamed about it. It was that far from what I thought I could achieve. Now I see it is possible. As Tokyo comes closer I'm very conscious of not letting it consume me. So I'm just going to the Olympics like I've always done. Very focused, very relaxed. I know that's the best way for me to run."
The Simplyhealth Canine Run is on 20 October
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Tokyo Olympic Games 2020
Laura Muir