ATHLETICS:The only problem with leading a race from gun to tape, winning comfortably in the end, smiling, hardly out of breath, is that it all looks so easy, when it isn't, actually, that easy at all.

It is, however, the tactic Fionnuala Britton has perfected, the latest exhibition of which came on Saturday in winning, for the second year in succession, the Great Edinburgh Cross Country. It looked about as easy as a morning run along Brittas Bay.

That’s not saying there aren’t bigger challenges ahead, starting with a sort of homecoming race in Antrim this Saturday, then the World Cross Country in Poland at the end of March, and, ultimately, some unfinished business on the track.

Saturday’s race – a triangular international between Europe, Britain, and the US – may have lacked any African presence, but organisers of the Antrim race this Saturday (the sixth stop on the IAAF Permit circuit) have signed up a couple of Kenyans and Ethiopians, exactly the sort of competition that Britton wants in the build-up to the World Cross Country, set for Bydgoszcz, on March 24th.

Britton has had two top-20 finishes at the World Cross Country, an excellent 14th when Kenya played host, in Mombasa, back in 2007, and she also finished 16th in the last edition of the championships, in Punta Umbria, Spain, in 2011 – and admits that’s where her overall progress this season will be judged.

Push on

“It’s not for another few months, at this stage, so it kind of hard to tell,” she says, “but I suppose I need to push on from here and improve even more, because to compete against the Africans is always tough. So, top 10 anyway, is what you’re aiming for, but really it is just to be in the mix, run the best on the day that you can.

“Sometimes it is hard (in that race) that if you get cut off from a group at the start you can end up running a race on your own. So the main thing is to hang in there with as many as the top girls as possible. But it would be very nice to have an Irish team for Poland, too. When you have a team behind you it boosts you as an individual as well.”

Linda Byrne certainly looks capable of joining her, finishing sixth here, confirming excellent return to cross country form. Yet no one was capable of sticking with the two-time European champion, who won by 16 seconds in the end, ahead of the Dutch runner Adrienne Herzog, with Britain’s Jessica Coulson, who held on for the first four laps, fading to fourth.

Indeed the only blip on Britton’s performance was a little slip, halfway around the final lap, which she admitted was more embarrassing than anything else, especially as the race was going on live on BBC.

“I fell once before and landed on my chin but to do that manoeuvre live on television was a first and not something I want to do a third time.

“I might be best known as a cross-country specialist but track is still where it’s at, I know that.

“I really enjoy cross-country running but I’ve always had top ambitions to do it on the track also and that remains a very big ambition for me.”