The difficult decisions become a bit more enjoyable as the quality rises it seems.

On Saturday at Cumbernauld the biggest problem troubling Peter Jardine, Scottish Athletics’ head of communications, was what to do with the auction donation they had received ahead of next weekend’s annual awards dinner in Glasgow.

Should the spikes donated by Andrew Butchart be offered as a pair or separated into two lots… the first the one he was wearing as he crossed the line to break Nat Muir’s 36-year-old Scottish 5000m record during a race in Holland and the other the one that had fallen off on the way.

Decisions, decisions…

Tricky ones are also facing the panel adjudicating which of the eight short-listed contenders is Scotland’s athlete of the year and Saturday’s National Cross Country Relay Championships at Cumbernauld offered another wee insight into why that is proving so difficult.

Butchart has been the pre-eminent Scot over the hills and mud in recent years and was part of a Central Athletics Club quartet that continued its domination of this event, winning in some style for the fifth successive time.

However, such was the lead he had been given by Jamie Crowe, Michael Wright, who ran a particularly impressive second leg and Alistair Hay, that the man who finished fifth in the 5000m final in Rio allowed fellow Olympic debutant Callum Hawkins to claim his share of the bragging rights with the best time of the day, his time of 11.01 beating Butchart’s by 21 seconds.

It was another impressive individual effort by the Kilbarchan runner who made his bit of history by becoming the first home winner of the Great Scottish Run in 33 years a fortnight ago, not least because the four kilometre distance, if not necessarily the terrain, considerably favoured Butchart.

“I went off pretty fast and it was a shock to the system in many ways after marathons and half marathons,” said Hawkins.

“I’ve not done any cross country training at all, but I’ve got my eye on Liverpool and the Euro Cross. It is a couple of years since I was at that and it is something I want to do for this year. Myself and Andy are off to the Pyrenees for a full month of altitude training and we will come back just before the Euro Trials at Liverpool.”

Ahead of the race Butchart had admitted that there is a growing friendly rivalry between the pair.

“We have banter and there is a bit of trash talk occasionally, but it’s just a bit of fun, isn’t it? Callum will shake my hand if I beat him and I’ll shake his if he beats me,” he said.

This time around, then, both had cause to congratulate one another, but it was clear that as an enthusiastically dedicated team member at Central, nothing was going to take the sheen off their collected satisfaction.

‘It was good to win it again,” he said.

“That’s five in a row for Central AC and I know it means a lot to the coaches and the club to keep being the dominant force at cross country,” he said.

“I definitely had the ‘glory leg’ this time with the fourth leg and happily the guys before me had it set up so well for me that I just had to get round safely. Michael Wright really had an excellent run in the second leg which made a big impact on the race and Jamie Crowe and Alastair Hay did well on one and three, as well.”

Beyond that, while the remarkable way he has emerged this year, also breaking John Robson’s 32-year-old Scottish 3000m record in his first season as a full-time athlete, is likely to invite the attention of those looking for a piece of the action, Butchart has a maturity as a relatively late developing 25-year-old, that promises to stand him in good stead.

That was evident in his explanation for being in Cumbernauld immediately before joining the rest of the GB athletes at their rather more glamorous base and his commitment to sticking to the methods that have brought his career to this highly promising stage.

“I love racing here at Cumbernauld and I love cross country,” he said.

“The bottom line is: the things we did last year worked perfectly for me ahead of Rio so it is a case of trying to do the same again – and then see if I can go even quicker on the track next summer.”

If there was no drama to the way Central defended their men’s title it was a very different matter for their women as they claimed their podium position.

Morag MacLarty had been left with just a bit too much to do to reel in Mhairi McLennan of Edinburgh University Hares and Hounds, setting off a minute and 18 seconds behind the leader and she was also more than a minute behind VP-Glasgow youngster Anna Tait.

However roared on by her clubmates the 30-year-old, who represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, produced a superb sprint finish around the treacherously angled final bend to snatch the silver medals on the line.