It is a big weekend in Glasgow for three of Europe’s leading distance runners – Gemma Steel, Jo Pavey and Sara Moreira.
The trio are competing in the Great Scottish Run on Sunday, a half-marathon where they will face Kenya's Edna Kiplagat, the double world marathon champion.
The race is just 10 weeks away from this year’s SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Hyères, an event where Great Britain’s Steel will be the defending champion.
Last December in Samokov, Steel won the women’s senior title in the closest of finishes as she beat teammate Kate Avery, the pair both being timed at 28:27.
They were back on the podium to celebrate team gold too, and for Steel, it took her career tally of medals at the championships to seven (she has four golds, two silvers and a bronze).
Building towards Hyères, Steel produced a fine run in her first half-marathon of the autumn last month when she was second (1:11:00) in the Great North Run behind Kenya’s Mary Keitany (1:07:32).
Pavey, who turned 42 last month, is the European 10,000m champion and she chose to miss the world championships in Beijing in August as she concentrates on next summer, with the Amsterdam 2016 European Athletics Championships and Olympic Games in Rio as her priority.
She remains one of the enduring figures in athletics at the moment because of the way she never gave up on her dream of winning a major title which came with her European triumph in Zurich last summer.
Pavey has been taking a steady route into 2016, running competitively only five times this year, including finishing seventh in the European Cup 10,000m in Chia in June.
Portugal’s Moreira has remained Europe’s leading half-marathoner all year since she was second in Lisbon in March (1:09:18).
But it was over the full marathon 11 months ago where she showed her brilliant versatility, finishing third on her debut at the distance in New York and was 12th in the 10,000m at the world championships last month.
Kiplagat is the defending Great Scottish Run champion after she broke the course record last year in 1:07:57.