For Paula, the 10,000m run was ‘mission accomplished’

The smile stayed fixed and the resolve unmoved as Paula Radcliffe confronted the most important week of her career here on Sunday. Despite finishing a distant ninth and being blown away by the sheer pace of the Ethiopians in the 10,000m, Radcliffe insisted that her plans to win the marathon were very much on track.

There are many here ? and even some within Radcliffe’s close circle of confidantes ? who believed her decision to contest the track event was a major risk.

Even Gerard Hartmann, Radcliffe’s Ireland-based physical therapist, was concerned at the double attempt. He watched the race on television in Limerick, where he is treating Kelly Holmes, and is understood to have told friends that he wished Radcliffe had taken his advice.

But the Bedford athlete was having none of it. She said that the 10,000m, won by the 19-year-old favourite, Tirunesh Dibaba had been “a good hard workout”.

Radcliffe, 31, added: “I feel fine. I’ve been out for a run and things are looking good. I didn’t run as fast and didn’t finish as high as I wanted to. At my best I would have been sharper but the Ethiopians’ last lap was frightening.

“The time I ran was similar to what I did in New Orleans before this year’s London Marathon. I always said that I didn’t want to compromise my preparations for the marathon and I think the 10,000m fitted in well. For me, it was mission accomplished.”

Radcliffe’s cheery demeanour was in sharp contrast to a year ago in Athens, when illness and injury rendered her a shadow of her former self. She dropped out of the marathon and then, despite advice to the contrary, blundered into the 10,000m where she was clearly running on empty.

However, her enthusiasm could do little to satisfy those who watched with growing concern as Radcliffe battled against the wind, the rain and the highest quality of 10,000m fields. She was surprised at how many runners stayed with her front-running tactic and at the number who sped past her in the last four laps.

“I enjoyed it all, except getting my backside kicked over the last four laps,” she admitted.

The ease with which Dibaba, her older sister Ejegayehu and Berhane Adere accelerated over their scintillating last lap should have suggested to Radcliffe that the event has moved on and as a marathon runner, she will no longer be in the hunt for medals at this level.

But such is Radcliffe’s blind faith on these occasions that she even refused to admit that. “I wouldn’t say my days of racing the 10,000m at a World Championships are totally behind me,” she said.

More pressing, though, is the job of making sure everything is working properly for the four-lap, 26.2 mile challenge on Sunday. She will go into the race as the world record holder and some three minutes quicker than her nearest rival, Catherine Ndereba, of Kenya.

This will be Radcliffe’s fourth marathon in 12 months, even though she claimed on Sunday that, after dropping out at 35km, she was “not counting Athens”.

Whether the marathon has been made easier or more difficult because of the pounding she took in the 10,000m will be answered on Sunday afternoon.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH