WITH Britain’s greatest ever track runner tipping her for future Olympic glory, Laura Muir is seeking to follow in his footsteps by doubling up events at major championships following her stunning start to 2017.

On the eve of what he indicated will be his last cross country competition, just days after being knighted in the New Year's Honours, Mo Farah probably did not expect to be asked quite as many questions about another athlete who is not even a rival, or even the same gender.

That he was is an indicator of the impact made over the last 12 months by Muir and, in particular, her remarkable feat in demolishing fellow Scot Liz McColgan’s Scottish indoor 5000metre record, a mark that had endured since before Muir was born.

The 23-year-old - who is captaining the British team at today’s Simply Health Great Edinburgh XCountry at Holyrood - is clearly getting used to the attention as well so, while naturally flattered by Farah’s suggestion that she will also become an Olympic champion, she did not come over all peculiar at the notion.

That said, she is taking nothing for granted either, recognising that many thousands of miles must be negotiated before that opportunity arises.

“There are a few years yet,” Muir observed.

“You could argue that Mo is the best there has ever been in endurance running in Britain. To hear those comments from him is really nice but I think I’ve got a wee while yet to catch up.

“It’s so far away and so much can happen. Look at me in 2012. Nobody would really have clocked who I was at all. So when you think of 2012 to 2016, you have no idea where I will be in 2020.

“It’s very difficult to put markers on things for years to come. I just know that if I keep training hard and stay injury-free, hopefully I will be a medal contender come Tokyo.”

However, there is no doubt that Wednesday’s record run at The Emirates has been, if not a game changer, then a run that confirmed that she is doing the right thing in looking to compete over two distances as Andy Young, her coach, acknowledged yesterday.

“Wednesday probably puts the icing on the cake and said that, all being well fitness and health wise, we’ll do it,” he observed.

“Had it not gone so fast we might have been saying it’s a yea or a nay, but having already now run a world-class time indoors we’ve already put down a marker, so we might just do one more 5k (ahead of the World Championships in London).”

While he is clear that her established specialist distance remains her priority, Young reckons that, rather than worry about it being a distraction or an additional burden, having a second event can take some pressure off Muir in providing a chance to capitalise if she is in top form, or a back-up should something go wrong in the sometimes unpredictable world of middle-distance running.

“It’ll be the 1500m that’s the focus,” he said.

“That’s where we’re going for the (world championship) medal. We’ll obviously take it seriously because it’s a 5K at a world championships, but it’s more of a bonus at this point in time.

“You never know what’s going to happen. Some people see it as pressure, but I see it the other way around. I see it as, if something horrible goes wrong and you get tripped in the first heat of the 1500m, you’ve always got the 5K. So it is another opportunity from my point of view.

“It’s something we wouldn’t have done in 2013 or 2015, but she’s been there now.”

Before that there are the European Indoor Championships in March and, while Muir is politely avoiding being presumptuous, she is now of a calibre of competitor that she can, or ought to be able to pick her races and she indicated that she wants to run both the 1500m, in which she established herself as a world-class competitor in 2016 and the 3000m at that meet in Belgrade.

“The timetable works that I can do the 1500m and 3K,” she noted.

“I’ve not been selected yet but hopefully I can be selected in the two events, all going well in the lead-up to it.

“There are two heats on the Friday, the 1500m final on the Saturday, 3K final on the Sunday. My legs will be working that weekend.”

Albeit over tricky terrain, this weekend’s workload is understandably lighter in the wake of Wednesday’s effort, Muir running a one-kilometre leg in the Stewart Cup mixed relay in which she led Scotland to victory last year, but runs for Britain this time around.

Thereafter she and Young head back to South Africa for further warm weather and altitude training, having already had a clearly productive lengthy spell there ahead of the festive period, perhaps after asking Farah a few relevant questions of her own.

“I’ve not had a chance to really see him much, but as far as it goes he’s the best at it,” she observed.

“He’s done it four or five times at two very tough distances. The 1500m is slightly different in that you’ve got three rounds rather than 10K which is just the one round, but I think in terms of fatigue it’ll play on your mind so I might ask him about it and get some tips.”

The best of Scottish, working with the best of British to challenge and defeat the best in the world. That is both the environment in which Muir and her compatriots are thriving and what spectators at Holyrood are hoping to witness today.