New year, new century, but for athletes all over the world it means the start of Olympic year. That's a sense of anticipation you only get a few times in your running career.

I remember New Year's Eve in 1996. I was in Dublin, injured and getting treatment with Gerard Hartmann. The New Year flipped over and I felt a distinct sense of tension straight away. It was 1996. Olympic Year. I could feel pressure, this sense of counting down.

This year I'm more relaxed about it. It feels special, but things are different for me. I feel right now like I need to train. I need to get the work done and when I'm really fit I'll start looking at things more closely. I'll start making plans then about how best to get to Sydney in good shape, what to do in the summer etc.

These days when I'm talking to Alan Storey, we're just talking about getting fit again. I'm six weeks off race fitness now I would say, and to be honest, I couldn't run a race right now. I'm looking towards the middle of February for that and then I need to find a pattern of taking it easy, training hard, taking it easy, training hard. It's all ahead of me.

For the New Year we were in Melbourne, at home. We didn't travel far on New Year's Eve, we could see the fireworks from the house. The weather got cool so we watched from the balcony and took in the celebrations in Sydney on the TV. Outside it was too manic for taking Ciara anywhere and the babysitters were looking for small fortunes. A quiet New Year made sense.

I didn't get that dreaded sense of being older that some people talked about. My 30th birthday had already had that affect on me. I was 30 on the 28th of November. Into the third decade. I think that had more of an impact than the millennium. In your thirties you can start thinking of yourself as a veteran runner, counting the days.

The period since coming down to Australia has been a little frustrating. I had made plans to have all the Olympic qualifying times wrapped up for myself before Christmas. Then I got a tendon strain in my back before I left London and had to postpone departure to Australia by a week to get treatment with Gerard Hartmann in Limerick.

After going so well at the BUPA Ireland Loughrea Road race, it was a pain to have to stop running and get back to the drawing board, but with so much at stake there was no choice. I have a lot of strengthening work that I need to do on my tendons and joints, loosened during pregnancy, and the repair work has to be done.

Gerard had described specific exercises to me over the phone, but I went to Limerick so that he could show me how to do them properly. Having the demonstration worked out better. It was hard to set aside running again and get back to working in a swimming pool. It's a strange environment to be in a public pool with everyone else. I went down to the Castletroy Hotel in Limerick to do some work, they have one lane there for decent swimmers. Now I only learned how to swim properly a year ago in Australia but when I arrived in, they all looked at me and moved out of the fast lane in case they were going to be drowned in the wash.

Once I got to Australia I was keen to get started on some hard work. But for the first few weeks most of that work was still being done in the swimming pool. But unlike in Ireland where the country is still to build its first Olympic-size swimming pool, Australia seems to have a 50 metre pool within walking distance from wherever you may be. For about 10 days before Christmas we came up to Falls Creek where I trained at altitude for the month of January in 1998, setting me up for a very successful year. I was doing one run a day and going into the swimming pool for a second session when I did my ankle in. That's one of the recurring nightmares for athletes in an Olympic year. You'll be out running and something silly will happen. Going over on your ankle, taking a tumble. Maybe it just costs you a few days, but when you add the setbacks up you don't make the progress you should.

Anyway, that little injury forced me to take another few days off. I decided my Christmas present to myself would be to have a run on Christmas Day. That's how it worked out. I went off on my own and Nick came over and met me with Ciara later. Felt good. Ever since then, I've been going alright.

We came back up to Falls Creek just after the New Year. There's a real buzz about the place just now. We're staying in a nice apartment, Alpine Woodsmoke Lodge, with Nick and Ciara, British marathon runner Richard Nerurkar and Australian 1,500 metre champion Sarah Jamieson. There are lots of other athletes in the same block as us. All the best Australian middle and long distance runners are here including Olympic marathon medal hopefuls Steve Moneghetti and Kerryn McCann. When we were running today there were people everywhere, coming from all directions. It's a bit of a novelty having so many people around, but getting into a rhythm with the hard work is the key thing. The schedule: We meet at half nine every morning. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday we drive out about five minutes to Langfords Gap where good running trails follow the aquaducts that supply the area with water. You can run east or west, it depends on the day. You meet fine, big cows, bred big on all the good air, no kangaroos or koalas, just cows! At the end of the run, we go into the dam area of the aquaduct and stand in the ice cold water in our shorts. Absolutely freezing. The idea is that it gets the blood flowing to your tired muscles and speeds up the recovery from hard training. I've been doing this for a while, taking a cold bath at home even with ice cubes added to make sure it's really cold. In the evenings, we go out again at 5.30 for a half-hour run around from the village along more trails that follow another aquaduct. We congregate on the top of this hill and it's a real easy jog around the place for a half-hour recovery run followed by another half-hour of circuit training on return. Then I have the bit of extra curricular work from Gerard to do as well.

In the medium term, I've decided that I'm going to try to run a 10,000 metres race before I leave Australia. I don't want to find myself in the summer wondering when and where I'm going to do a 10,000 metres. With the 5000 and the 1,500 metres the same urgency isn't there. You can get a race at those distances any night of the week during the summer in Europe .

I'd like to do the 10,000 at the Australian national championship in Sydney on February 24th. It will be a good field and a good experience. It's a straightforward enough proposition. You just have to go out and run thirty two and a half minutes. With that in mind, I'll probably stay here in Falls Creek for a month or so. It's possible to run a 10,000 metres just off distance training. I'm not sure about the world cross country yet. I'd like to run it, if I'm fit enough. If I'm going to do it, I'll come back to Europe in early March. If not, I'll stay here till late March. I'm not in a big rush to do it, but if I'm fit there is no reason not to. Maybe I should save it for next year when it will be in Dublin.

This is the start of an unusual year. September is the focus. Usually that's when we would be having our last race, but this year we have to peak then and not worry too much about the summer.

It's all new. The summer will be for getting the feeling of quality racing on the track again and for ticking over with the training in between. I imagine we'll be training late into the season, coming down to Australia maybe three weeks before the games and continuing training down here .

Already in Australia there is this huge buzz. It is summer season down here and quite a few athletes are really fit and already running very well, looking to get selected. Somebody qualifies down here and it's big news. For me though, it's so far away that I can't afford to really get excited. I haven't even qualified for the Olympics yet. In that way, I'm the same as the rest of the world. The dream is far away. All the work is ahead.