In the tumult of 30,000 spectators going absolutely mad, camera phones lighting up the twilight sky, after witnessing a tremendous race which saw the Scot step out into lane two of the blue track in the home straight at Alexander Stadium to produce a sprint finish. 

Even McColgan probably did not know she was capable of outrunning Kenyan rival Irine Cheptai when she saw a familiar face in the crowd.

The Saltire draped over her slender shoulders dripping with the sweat of 25 hard run laps, McColgan raced towards her mum and the two held each other closely, oblivious to everyone else around them, as Liz whispered something into the ear of her daughter, who she also coaches.

When I saw Liz a couple of hours after the race behind the main stand at Alexander Stadium, the pride and sense of achievement was palpable. 

She had won this title herself twice, first at Edinburgh 1986 as the then-Liz Lynch. 

Just as Eilish had been, she had been carried to victory by a crowd willing her to succeed as the women’s 10,000m made its Commonwealth Games debut.

Pounding round the track of Meadowbank Stadium, Lynch ran into the hearts of the people of Scotland. 

The stick-thin elfin lassie with prodigious talent, a dazzling smile, and happily broad Dundee tones became an instant national heroine - "Our Liz", as she was duly dubbed.

Now Scotland has a new poster girl. 

"As an athlete myself you have fond memories of having success and whatever but when it's your own children it's like 100 times better," said Liz.

"It's just one of those really special moments and I was just thankful I was actually in the stadium and able to experience how the home support helped lift her to that gold medal.

"It was just one of those really, really special moments that probably will never come along again but it was just a great atmosphere and just really exciting and nerve-wracking to be part of it."

Four years after Edinburgh 1986, the now Liz McColgan retained her Commonwealth Games 10,000m title at Auckland 1990.

A few months later, in November of that year, Eilish was born.

Eilish's birth turned out to be the making of Liz’s career, but at the time many thought it was the end of it.

Back then, having a child while harbouring ambitions of sporting glory was considered unprofessional in many, including by McColgan’s shoe sponsor, who cut her as soon as she told them she was pregnant.

"Nike dropped me pretty much right away and I lost my contract," she later recalled. 

"There were no earnings for the months I was pregnant after that."

But research has shown that childbirth can have huge beneficial effects on female distance runners, including increasing the heart’s chamber, allowing it to pump up to 40 per cent more blood around the body, enabling the body to transport more oxygen to the muscles.

The birth of Eilish turbo-charged the career of Liz, who has always been a gritty, determined character.

Only nine months after Eilish was born, Liz raced to the gold medal in the 10,000m at the World Championships in Tokyo in a pair of Asics shoes she had picked off the shelf (so it was appropriate that Eilish should be wearing the same brand of shoes in Birmingham). 

"I came back a different runner," McColgan said. 

"I trained harder, and I went to Tokyo so confident I wouldn’t be beaten. By the time I got there, I knew it was my time."

The 1976 Olympic 10,000m bronze medallist Brendan Foster, commentating from Tokyo for the BBC, had no doubt how good a run that performance was.

"The greatest run in the history of British distance running, man or woman, any time, any place, anywhere - that's the best I've seen and it's better than any I've ever read about," he said.

I sat next to Liz’s husband Peter during that race as one-by-one opponents succumbed to his wife’s relentless pace in the sauna-like conditions where every step was like being hit in the face with a wet blanket. 

He leaned increasingly forward the longer the race went, his hands clasped tightly together, and he softly exhaled each time a rival fell away.

Peter was himself a world-class runner, good enough to represent Britain at those same World Championships in the 3,000m steeplechase in the Japanese capital and who still holds the Northern Ireland record for the 3,000m indoors.

He enjoyed his own special hug with Eilish a few minutes after she received her gold medal from Kenyan legend Paul Tergat, an indication perhaps that organisers were not expecting a Scottish victory.

Yet it was a moment that he nearly missed, admitting that he had to be "dragged to Birmingham, kicking and screaming, as I prefer to watch at home."

After her victory at Tokyo in 1991, Liz was for a time the biggest star in athletics. 

She won the New York City Marathon in the then fastest-ever debut, was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year and when she raced in the Durham cross-country race, there was a five-mile traffic jam as so many people wanted to watch her in action.

McColgan finished fifth in the following year’s Olympic 10,000m in Barcelona, but there were other highs, including winning the inaugural World Half Marathon Championships in 1992 and claiming victory at the Tokyo and London Marathons.

But none of them will have been as special to her as when Eilish crossed that finishing line in Birmingham.