Eilidh Child's surprise ascent rise to the top of the European 400 metres rankings has taken diligent graft and a new assertive tactical approach from her coach Malcolm Arnold.
However, the newly crowned UK indoor champion has revealed the biggest breakthrough has not been achieved on the track but in the deepest recesses of her mind.
Child goes into today's Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham with greater self-belief than she has ever possessed after turning to a psychologist in the wake of her Olympic disappointment last summer.
It took a bit of persuasion, she admits, before she agreed to meet up with Mike Cunningham and unburden herself of her fears. This was uncharted territory. There was, she felt, little to lose.
"He actually contacted me through my website after he saw an article where I spoke about how I got overwhelmed by the Olympics," she con-firmed. "He offered to help and I get on really well with him. He's been a big help to me."
After claiming the Scottish record with one of the best runs of her career seven days ago, the results speak for themselves. "He's got me focusing on the things I can control," Child added. "That's really helped boost my confidence. I'm not worrying about who's in the race – I just do what I need to do."
It is an approach which might bring another medal at next month's European Championships in Sweden. However, her current supremacy will be tested in her final tune-up when she faces perennial foe Perri Shaks-Drayton and American Natasha Hastings this afternoon in the televised Birmingham meeting.
"It's going to be a very tough field," she said. "I might not get the chance to get out in front like I did at the UK Championships but we'll figure out the tactics. Breaking the Scottish record really boosted my confidence. You sometimes know in training you're running well but until you get out in a race, you're never sure. So it's given me a lot of self-belief."
Double Olympic champion Mo Farah makes his first appearance of the year on home soil over 3000m, Lynsey Sharp will take on the returning Jenny Meadows in the 800m while fellow 800m prospect Guy Learmonth will bid to win over the British Athletics selectors before they meet on Monday to choose their team for the European Indoor Championships.
"Hopefully, I can get in with the other guys and get dragged around to a fast time," the Borderer said. "I was caught out a bit last weekend but I have taken a lot of positives from the way things have been going."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article