From Weekend 1

AN IRISH tabloid informed the world that she was "Home Alone", her relationship with Kim McDonald sundered, her life unspooling like a latter day Garbo behind drawn curtains and locked doors.

She's was too weary to get ill touch and tell them that she's always lived alone, that she'd bought her new place last spring, that Kim has always had his place, that things between them are the same as they ever were. Besides, on the lay the world learned that she was Home Alone" she was in Milan trying to bookend her summer with a win.

She thinks maybe she shouldn't have run again this summer but she had an obsessive need to find out what was there, what strength was in her legs and in her head. In Milan they both let her down. Her legs felt heavy and she didn't have the will to push herself beyond that. "Now I know."

She doesn't know if she will ever again be the same obsessive perfectionist she was before Atlanta. She has thought about Sydney, but in general terms only. Nicer place than Atlanta, she thinks. "Couldn't be any worse," she grins.

Ireland is a nice place to come home to if you're not wearing any medals and just humping a suitcase full of regret about the place.

"People used to come up and not really say anything to me. They'd want your photo or your autograph like you were a machine. I thought if I failed, people would treat me differently - but nobody sees me as anything less then they did before."

"If I'd come home with the gold medals maybe there would have been people out but this way it's easier for people to talk to me. People aren't afraid of talking to me instead of just looking at me. I was sitting out today and people were walking past to their lunch and they're all asking how I was doing as if I'm everyone's best friend. Maybe I am. That's not bad.

"That's what I've learned. It's been had but not all had. Anything can happen."