The odd footballer may have encountered something similar in cup finals down the years, but Laura Muir admitted it was strange to find herself in the unusual position of having the responsibility for denying Scotland the successful defence of a trophy she helped win a year earlier.

It had been a proud moment when she led the team that saw off Great Britain as well as Europe, the USA, England, Ireland and Wales when The Stewart Cup, contested over a 4 x 1km mixed relay format, was inaugurated at Holyrood last year.

However the Scotland A team’s bid to retain it looked to be in trouble from the moment the British squad was announced with Muir as its captain and so it proved.

“It’s a bit of an odd one, but it’s a really big honour to run for either team and GB picked me this time so I had to do my best for them,” she said, after considerably extending the slight lead she had been handed as she took the baton.

“But it was great to have Scotland A and especially one of my training partners Jemmy, right at the front of the field as well, so it’s great that the two teams did well.”

The training partner in question, Jemma - to give her her Sunday name - Reekie ran gamely, finishing in third spot and, just as her own efforts have given Scottish athletics a great start to 2017, so Muir reckoned this was just further evidence of why there is reason to be very excited about the overall domestic scene.

“It was a weird feeling to be up against my friends, but that’s competition really and it’s great to have so much strength in depth that we could have two Scotland teams here today and, with myself included, nine Scottish athletes competing in one race,” she observed.

“We’ve got such strength in depth across multiple distances from 800 up to marathon with the likes of Callum... so many good runners just now in loads of different fields, so it’s great to have that camaraderie when we’re at championships.”

Just as Steph Twell, her Scotland and Great Britain team-mate spoke generously at the weekend about her performances at the weekend as she anticipated the prospect of vying with her for places in international teams, describing her efforts as ‘an inspiration’ that other Scots are feeding off, so Muir acknowledged the lead that has been given in recent years by Eilidh Doyle in demonstrating that Scottish runners can compete at the highest level.

“In the past two or three years there’s been a big resurgence among Scottish athletes. Eilidh’s spurred it on and we’ve all kept it going. It’s been great to see,” she said.

That depth of quality is now such that Muir was taking nothing for granted as she took that baton on Saturday, knowing she had worked her legs hard just three days later when setting a new Scottish indoor 5000 metres record, smashing Liz McColgan’s 25-year-old previous best by 14 seconds.

“I knew Jemma was running the last leg and she’s really strong so I knew if she had a really big lead it would be tough,” she acknowledged.

The way Muir dominated the race from that point had the potential to intimidate future opponents, drawing the wry suggestion from Twell that it may force her into a re-think.

“I might have to go back to 1500,” she said, with a laugh.

In more serious vein, having previously made the step up from racing over 1500m to 5000m on the track, last year’s European Championship bronze medallist Twell, who is currently weighing up her schedule as she targets August’s World Championships in London, endorsed Muir’s plans to double up at championships by running both the 1500m and the 3000m at the European Indoors and the 1500m and 5000m at the Worlds.

“I think it was a nice correlation,” she said of Muir having tested out her capacity to sustain her speed in 5000 metre competition.

“I’ve done that sort of pattern myself, back in 2010. I always knew this was coming. I didn’t realise it was going to be last Wednesday. I was looking to see the result, but if you’re running free with British records, then undoubtedly you’re going to be in that shape to run well if you manage to keep that aerobic volume in and Laura’s an excellent example of that.”