Olympic success is something that has always eluded Paula Radcliffe, but as she prepares to defend her New York City Marathon title on Sunday, she revealed that she would not swap what she has done in her career for an Olympic gold medal.

Last year, Radcliffe outsprinted Gete Wami, of Ethiopia, to win her second New York title just ten months after giving birth to her daughter, Isla. This year has proved frustrating, as injuries forced her to miss London, and then a broken thigh meant she was underprepared for the Beijing Olympics, where a distressed Radcliffe trailed in 23rd.

“I’ve been lucky with the successes I’ve had,” Radcliffe said. “I certainly wouldn’t swap the world records for it [Olympic gold]. I would probably trade one of the New York wins, but not both, because New York was important to me too. All the time I’m still running, I feel I have another shot at the Olympics, so I wouldn’t trade too much of what I’ve got.”

Certainly she showed she was in form by winning the Great South Run, over ten miles in Portsmouth, on Sunday, in a British record time of 51min 11 sec. “I was pleased to feel good, feel strong and recover well afterwards,” she said. “I was a bit annoyed because I wanted to get under 51min, but in the back of my mind I knew that it was only a week before this race so I didn’t want to push everything in the last few miles. Subconsciously I just backed off in the last two miles when I felt the wind.

“I love New York, ever since I first came in 1995. I love running in Central Park, around the reservoir with all the other runners with the backdrop. As it goes on, I’ve got more and more happy memories every time I come back.” It certainly proved to be a good place to get over the disappointment of Olympic failure before. After failing to finish in Athens in 2004, she came to New York to win her first title here.

“In 2004, I probably didn’t realise what a big step everyone else thought I was taking until I got here and did the press conference and read some of the stuff afterwards,” she said. “We deliberately didn’t plan this race post-Beijing as a post-Beijing pick-up, we deliberately said we weren’t setting any targets, because with me that would have been difficult because I might have tried to push training instead of just let it happen.

"We literally decided the week of the press conference to announce that we were running here. Before that I was just concentrating on getting back to running, where last year it was a goal as soon as I got back into running.” Radcliffe certainly did not suffer any Beijing hangover. She flew home to Monaco the day after her race and was back running within five days.

“We were taking Isla to the beach every day for about two weeks, but after about five days after the race I started going out for a little run in the morning, just 30 minutes, then 30 minutes at night. But the focus was really on having a mental break and just running, because that was what I felt my body needed to do and not pushing it which I was having to do pre-Beijing.”

Wami and Susan Chepkemei, the Kenyan whom she beat in 2004, are among the opposition tomorrow, as is Catherine Ndereba, the silver medal-winner in Beijing, and Zola Pieterse, the former Zola Budd, who is making her marathon debut at the age of 42.

Victory for Radcliffe would place her second in the race’s role of honour, behind Grete Waitz, the Norwegian who won it nine times. Having run three of the fastest four marathon times of all time - including the world record of 2:15:25 in London in 2003, she has her eye on Margaret Okayo’s course record of 2:22:31, although she will not have any pacemakers. Her winning times in 2004 and 2007 were within a second of each other at 2:23:10 and 2:23:09.

“I must be able to run faster than 2hr 23min,” she said. “I think it’s weird that I manage to hit it within one second both times and run it totally different. Having run it before helps and the fact that the field is so strong makes a difference. It’s not as fast as London. My goal is to win the race; my secondary goal is to break the course record. I think it can go under 2:20.”