It is always a privilege to witness a world record live. In addition to Patrick Makau’s new figures of 2:03:38 in the BMW Berlin Marathon on Sunday there was also the excitement of watching Haile Gebrselassie and Paula Radcliffe suffer in their quest to earn selection for London 2012. All in all it was a cracking weekend in one of the world’s coolest cities.

Yet the best moment for me, by far, was seeing Scott Overall exceed expectations by smashing the Olympic qualifying standard with 2:10:55 for a fine fifth place – on his 26.2-mile debut to boot. Although his position in Team GB is not definite, it would be a huge surprise if he is not picked and this means, in effect, he pretty much became the first track and field athlete from the host nation to earn selection for the Games.

Britain’s latest distance-running revelation showed a perfect blend of relaxation and quiet anticipation on the eve of the race. I received a businesslike message on my phone three days before the race from him asking what the weather was like in Berlin (clearly with his tactics rather than his tan in mind). Then, at a drinks reception on Friday night organised by the people who had engineered his Berlin opportunity, the Virgin London Marathon, he turned up casually wearing flip flops and jeans and spoke tentatively about how he was worried about stepping into the unknown in the final 10km.

In some ways Overall was an unlikely hero. In others, the performance was predictable. An eye-opening 13:28 for 5000m early in the 2008 summer season hinted at greater things to come, but injuries such as a torn calf at the World Indoor Championships together with a simple and unexplainable inability to “get it right” on the track meant that he decided to step up in distance only this year.

“I had every intention of running 5000m and 10,000m on the track this summer,” he said in Berlin. “But races at Mt Sac and Stanford didn’t go well and I’d seemed to have lost my ability to run on the track.”

Overall, who is coached by Robert Chapman in the States, continued: “Then I ran a half-marathon in 63:20 and thought ‘maybe I’m on to something here’. So the marathon idea was born and, as I’ve always run about 18 miles in my weekly long run it meant I didn’t have to change my training too much. I just did a slightly longer long run and longer tempo runs.”

In addition, Overall has benefited from regular trips to altitude – both the London Marathon-funded and UKA-organised trips, plus his own annual visits to Flagstaff, Arizona. Under UKA’s head of endurance, Ian Stewart, Overall is also part of a British squad that is developing a no-stone-unturned and winning mentality. Meanwhile, when back in the UK, he makes ends meet with part-time work at the Clapham branch of Sweatshop.

Perhaps the biggest factor, though, is the sheer inspiration that Mo Farah has provided with his world-beating performances this year. Overall first trained with Farah under the same coach, Conrad Milton, at Borough of Hounslow AC when he was 14 (now 28, he is one month older than Farah).

“We had a great team back then and used to clean up as under-17s and under-20s. We’d be in relays and hand over to Mo in the lead and it would be ‘job done’. Mo has not changed at all either. You would not know he was a world champion. The only thing that’s changed over the years is that his English has got better!”

When Hounslow merged to become Windsor, Slough, Eton & Hounslow, the duo went their separate ways, but have remained great friends, with Overall an usher at Farah’s wedding, and they have done a few training runs this year both before and after Farah’s 5000m victory in Daegu.

“We were walking to the start and Ben (Whitby, Overall’s training partner) said, ‘It’s funny – Mo can beat all these guys’. I said, ‘We’ve run and trained with Mo for years. We can do this!’”

Farah’s performances have given Overall the belief that he can succeed and now Overall’s success is set to cascade down to grassroots level. Where Farah and Overall have gone, others will surely follow as the British distance-running revolution gathers pace.

» See Athletics Weekly on Thursday September 29 for in-depth coverage of the BMW Berlin Marathon.