WHEN Alan Sillitoe penned "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" in 1957, he provided one of the first insights into the psychological challenges that go hand in hand with a career in distance running.

Sent to a borstal after a crime-filled upbringing, the novella's leading protagonist, Smith, is forced into daily runs aimed at bringing a sense of order and discipline to his haphazard life.

Trailing through the fields of Essex, Smith is forced into a series of reflections on life, honesty and the over-arching social structure within which he is enclosed.

Imprisoned for his crimes, it is running that sets him free. Alone and isolated, he can no longer ignore the thoughts and fears he can shuffle to one side when his run is at an end.

Paula Radcliffe knows just how lonely being a long distance runner can be.

She has spent most of her life confronting her personal demons in isolation, trudging mile after mile in pursuit of her ultimate goal.

That goal - an Olympic gold medal - was snatched away from her 11 weeks ago, as her dreams of marathon glory imploded on an Athens street.

Suffering from an illness brought on by the use of anti-inflammatories, Radcliffe stumbled to a standstill before sobbing with her head in her hands on the side of the road.

While medics and well-wishers eventually came to her rescue, the world record holder was more alone then than she had ever been when on the run.

But this wasn't a loneliness brought on by physical isolation - this was a loneliness borne of personal failure and the knowledge that all the years of preparation had come to nothing because of a self-inflicted defeat.

Radcliffe arrived in Greece with a well-drilled support team and an entourage committed to helping her succeed - she left with nothing, ostracised by a British press who had branded her a 'quitter' and written off as a 'bottler' on the biggest stage of them all.

Redemption meant running but, while most people can run away from their problems, running for Radcliffe meant confronting hers head on.

The fear, confusion, self-analysis and doubt that had surfaced in Greece would clutter her mind every time she set about rebuilding her shattered dreams.

So, when she announced she would be putting her physical and mental well-being back on the line in last weekend's New York marathon, most observers felt she was setting herself up for a potentially irreversible fall.

It was too soon after Athens, both in terms of the health problems her body had encountered and the psychological scars imprinted on her mind.

For Radcliffe though, racing in New York was the one and only way of exorcising her demons.

"I want to make sure I'm not brought down by harking back to something I want to put behind me," she said, before destroying a world-class field in her own inimitable, head-bobbing style.

True champions recover from their setbacks, but few bounce back in as emphatic or as public a way as Radcliffe.

In the space of a little over two hours, she reaffirmed her status as one of the all-time greats with a display of courage, commitment and class.

Her battle with Kenyan Susan Chepkemei was about more than reaching the finishing line first - it was about restoring a battered reputation and ridding her mind of the emotional baggage that had refused to go away.

Radcliffe has suffered in the last three months.

She has endured public humiliation, intense self-doubt and an inevitable questioning of everything she has deemed important in her life.

But she has come through it and, as is the way for a long distance runner, she has come through it alone.