Plenty of analogies were in the air as Paula Radcliffe launched her post-Beijing comeback aboard HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship, but suffice it to say, there is no danger of her ending her one-eyed pursuit of Olympic glory.

Radcliffe drove her body to the limit even to get to the start line in China and dredged her spirit to finish 23rd after “running on one leg”. It was brave and brilliant in its own way, but not enough for a woman accustomed to minor miracles.

Tomorrow she returns over ten miles in the BUPA Great South Run in Portsmouth, but already attention is turning towards London 2012, with greats such as Ingrid Kristiansen, the former marathon world record-holder, saying that Radcliffe needs to reduce her training to survive. However, Radcliffe, who will be 38 by 2012, said that her Beijing dream was soured because of too few miles, not too many. “What was missing in Beijing was the fact I had not done enough running and you can't take short cuts in a marathon,” she said yesterday. “You can reduce the mileage a little bit and train sensibly, but you need a core base of mileage running or you will not be able to cope.”

The past few years have been torturous for Radcliffe. She missed the Commonwealth Games and the London Marathon with a foot injury in 2006, then suffered two stress fractures to her sacrum (at the base of the spine) during childbirth. That meant she missed last year's World Championships and, in May, she was told that she had a low-grade stress fracture of her left femur. She has made three leading championships since 2002.

Yet Radcliffe, who races over ten miles for the first time in 17 years, said that she is back running 140 miles a week, the same as when setting the marathon world record in 2003. It bodes well for next week, when she will attempt to retain her ING New York City Marathon title, and the advice from Kristiansen is likely to go unheeded.

Instead of a long rest, Radcliffe took only five days off after Beijing. “Mentally I did need a break,” she said. “But I didn't want to go back to zero and have similar problems to get back into running.”

She still wants a sibling for Isla but says that is not on the immediate agenda. As for her age, she believes that her base endurance is stronger than in 2003. “Some of the long runs are even a bit easier now,” she said. “But I find I sometimes need to take an extra day between sessions.”

Radcliffe, who will be tested by Magdelane Mukunzi, the Kenyan, tomorrow, said that she had not spoken to Charles van Commenee, the new head coach of UK Athletics, but said that she hoped the new era would bring improved medical back-up. “It's been wrong for a long time,” Radcliffe said. “We need to be aggressive about it.”