Christine Ohuruogu sat by the side of a blue track on a grey day and said she was miserable. This is her way in the winter. Usain Bolt, athletics' freshly crowned megastar, may have been indulging himself on the post-Beijing party scene, but Britain's most decorated athlete has been putting herself through a personal hell.

“I overdo it in terms of hours,” the world and Olympic 400 metres champion said. “I do more than I should, but I don't care because you have to be tough. I'd rather break myself in winter than next year and your body can only learn what pain is by feeling it.” The 24-year-old has sampled plenty of pain because of those three missed drugs tests that form a footnote to any Ohuruogu story. It is why she is intrigued to see how football now copes with the whereabouts system, which demands players be at a designated place for an hour every day. “My coach says I'm a good warning,” Ohuruogu said. “I'm the best example because it's really not worth going through everything I did. It's not worth the hassle. Believe me.

“I don't think I'm strong. I just do what I need to do. You have choices in life and I try to make the best choices I can and get on with it. I can be vulnerable. Everyone is. Everyone has their weak spots. I'm trying to work at them as opposed to running away from them.”

It has been a year of battles for Ohuruogu. She went to Beijing where Sanya Richards, her main rival for the title, gave a pre-race press conference where she said she felt Ohuruogu was fortunate to be there. Ohuruogu then won the gold, fended off more questioning about her past and went home to a quiet life in Stratford, London.

Having once been banned by the British Olympic Association, she won their athlete of the year award at the weekend. She was ill and so did not attend the UK Athletics awards dinner, but harking back holds little meaning for her. She is more concerned with moving forward, plotting the defence of her world title in Berlin next August and employing a work ethic that would shame some of her peers.

“Right now I'm miserable because I'm exhausted and hungry,” she said after a session at her Lea Valley base. “It gets bad, but I've never had a day where I've been so broken I can't come in. You have days where you can't be arsed or are tired, but you learn to adapt. It's nice to have that sort of control.” Ohuruogu is a reluctant champion, a private person who can be both gregarious and monosyllabic.

Her lack of PR skills certainly did not help her passage from outcast to national heroine, but she hopes football's inevitable problems with its new system will prevent kneejerk dissension in future. “It's made me stop caring in a sense,” she said. “Now I see that what matters is what I do. The comments irritate me to the extent that some people are ignorant. It's not that they won't let it go, but the fact they won't let it go for other reasons. You are trying to bring me down through your own ignorance. Yes, you can think what you like, but it seems deliberate ignorance. People want to rehash it to make themselves look clever.”

Ohuruogu will always be a conundrum. She has never failed a test and, in upholding her one-year ban, the Court of Arbitration for Sport termed her “a busy young athlete being forgetful”. The suspicious counter that others have cynically manipulated missed tests. It remains to be seen whether football's forgetful young athletes receive the same level of opprobrium.

In the meantime Ohuruogu is working flat out. “I don't think about Beijing much because I have to move on,” she said. “I have to think about next year. It's important that I defend my world title and defend it well.” So she is flogging herself in training and eyeing a personal best. Her Olympic winning time of 49.62sec was the fastest anyone ran this year, but her next-best marks were nineteenth and 70th on the IAAF top lists - proof of her ability to peak when it matters.

“This year I had a job to do,” she said. “I love it because I'm in control of my life. I'm in control of my achievements, I'm in control of my failure. I'm my own boss.” After bossing her event for two golden years, it seems the only person who can “break” her is herself.