Laura Muir and Keely Hodgkinson target world records in Birmingham

When Laura Muir and Keely Hodgkinson gaze at their trophy cabinets from the past 18 months they see Olympic, world, European and Commonwealth medals staring back at them. At the World Indoor Tour final in Birmingham on Saturday, however, their sole focus will be on hunting down world records.

Muir has by far the easier task as she seeks to break Maria Mutola’s 24-year indoor 1000m record. In 2017, before super spikes revolutionised the sport, Muir set a British and European record of 2min 31.93sec – 0.99sec outside Mutola’s best. But armed with the latest Nike shoes, and having proved her fitness over the winter, has the world record firmly in her sights.

“I feel I’m in a really good spot. I was fortunate the last time I competed in the kilometre in Birmingham I got the European record, so hopefully I can go one further,” said Muir, who is also preparing for next week’s European Indoor Championships in Istanbul.

“I’ve had a couple of shots at the K, I’m getting a better feel for it,” she added. “It’s definitely tricky, it’s nasty. It’s running 800m and keeping going. It’s the most painful of the distances I’ve competed. I’ve got the 800m speed but I’ve also got that bit of endurance.

“It’s always going to hurt when you’re racing. Even more so when you try to run faster than there has ever been. Pain is temporary, though.”

Hodgkinson admits that breaking Jolanda Ceplak’s 800m world record of 1min 55.82sec set on 3 March 2002 – the day she was born – will be a much harder task. “I feel I am in pretty good shape and if the perfect race was to happen I could get close to it,” she said. “But it’s a very hard record to break.

“I would have to go 57.2 or 57.3 at halfway,” she added. “For me it is just about attacking it and