Dobriskey shows renewed promise at Bupa Great Edinburgh Cross Country | 07.01.2013
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| Lisa Dobriskey finished 7th at the Great Edinburgh Cross Country on Saturday, an encouraging performance for the 29 year old. |
And she is taking each step with a smile, as she showed at the Bupa Great Edinburgh XCountry on Saturday.
Dobriskey, 29, remains one of the Britain's best women distance runners. She was the Commonwealth Games 1500m champion in Melbourne in 2006 and three years later she was second at the World Championships in Berlin with another tremendous run.
But as she took to the start line in the Scottish capital on Saturday afternoon, she was in a strange position.
This winter has been her first free of injury and illness since that success in Germany.
She has competed in that time, but was left disappointed at last summer's Olympic Games in London when she was only 10th in the 1500m final in 4:13.02.
In October 2011 she had surgery on her hip, then five months before the Olympics she had a stress fracture in her femur and then weeks later it was found that she had a blot clot on her lung.
Perhaps the smile at the end then on Saturday said everything, as she finished seventh in 10:07 in the Invitational 3km, a race won by the brilliant young talent of Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba in 9:46.
Dobriskey was not planning to run in Edinburgh and revealed: "It was a last minute thing that we decided to do it.
"I have not really had that many sessions behind me so I knew I wouldn’t be competitive with the Africans, other than that I have put a lot in and I am really happy.
“It wasn’t too muddy, the only problem I had was at the last hill where my quads just went to jelly I found the running quite long.
"I did not have any fight there, it was just a case of staying in, other than that it is just really lovely to be here.”
One of the most popular members of the British team, Dobriskey has reduced the length of her training runs and is slowly savouring every moment of a winter block of training without a problem.
