Nibbling at their own national records in Birmingham was the next stride on the march to the Olympic Games for Keely Hodgkinson and Dina Asher-Smith.
The all-star pair lowered their British marks by 0.02 and 0.01 seconds respectively at Utilita Arena Birmingham on the final leg of the World Indoor Tour.
They may not wipe out Sunday’s back pages but they are the kind of incremental gains that get coaches purring and athletes dreaming of success on the biggest stage of them all next summer.
Hodgkinson was the name on everyone’s lips in the West Midlands.
She’s already busted a world record this year - the little-raced 600m - and had her eyes on the world indoor 800m record that was set on her birthday, 3 March 2002.
The track’s neon wavelights marked the way and the crowd roared her every move to a national record of 1:57.18, a smidge swifter than her effort at this event last year, still short of the world record 1:55.82.
“When you set your goals high, you want to achieve them,” said the 20-year-old.
“It was a tough effort to get the world record, but I'll keep trying and I'll keep coming back to give it a go.
“There's always the next thing in sport. At the end of the year, I think I will look back and think that was a good building block.”
Asher-Smith’s favourite saying runs something like: the work you do in the winter, shows up in the summer; encapsulating her view of 60m sprinting as a stepping stone.
But she is still in the shape of her life, whether it’s 200, 100 or a little shorter, smashing out a 7.03 in the heats to shave a hundredth off January’s PB in Germany.
“It's good that I'm frustrated running so fast,” said Asher-Smith.
“It bodes really well and everything has been going really well in training so I can't complain.
“I think for me indoors is always about getting ready for the outdoors.
“I like to perform at the major championships and I work back from things like Budapest, things like Oregon last year, I work back and map out my season.
“I haven't done indoors for so long properly, I thought we would give it a shot this year and I'm happy.”
It’s Istanbul next for Hodgkinson to defend her European indoor title, while it looks like Asher-Smith will close up her indoor season here.
Big battles await in the summer as the World Championships go to Budapest.
Hodgkinson wants revenge having been edged to gold by 0.08s in Eugene, and Asher-Smith was 0.02 shy of a 100m medal.
What was that about fine margins?
Sportsbeat 2023