Not short of accolades over the past few years, Catriona Graves has once again proven herself to be a tremendous young athlete.
Back in 2021, Catriona and her fellow Carnethy Hill Running Club members grabbed the headlines for collectively completing all 282 Scottish Munros in a single day. Last year, success continued as Catriona won team bronze at the World Mountain & Trail Running Championships in Thailand.
Fast forward to 2023 and Catriona has just claimed the women’s title at the famous Highland Cross, finishing with a time of 4hrs 3 mins – a whopping nine minutes ahead of her nearest competitor.
The Highland Cross is a 50-mile duathlon (20 miles on foot, 30 miles on bike) traversing the spectacular Scottish Highlands coast to coast, west to east from Kintail through Glen Affric and Strathglass to Beauly. Highland Cross exists to raise money for causes that benefit the people of Highland, disadvantaged by disability, ill health or social need.
Speaking to Will Clark of The Northern Times immediately after the race, Catriona commented: “This is the first time that I have done the race. I like running and cycling and a last minute place came up with my friend so I decided I would give it a bash. I felt a bit faint on the run originally so I did take on a lot of fluids, but I did feel a lot better on the bike in the second half of the run. I am better over longer distances as I do ease into it.”
We look forward to seeing what’s next for the Junior Doctor now living in Inverness, but for now, our congratulations from all at The Academy.