Kelly Holmes of Great Britain wins the Olympic 800m gold (© Getty Images)
The two gold medals that Britain’s Kelly Holmes won at the Olympic Games in Athens have not left her side since she ran her way into history, but almost two weeks later she is still having difficulty believing it is true.
"I keep having to look at them," she said. "Yes, my names are engraved on the back but after everything I have been through in my career, it all does seem a bit surreal."
What though has hit home is the reality that, even to herself, she has nothing to prove any more and it is probably why the smile that beamed across her face when she won in Greece has remained with her ever since.
Holmes, 34, won the 800m and 1500m Olympic titles, only the third woman to achieve it behind Russians Tatyana Kazankina, in Montreal in 1976, and Svetlana Masterkova, in 1996 in Atlanta. But it has arrived at a time of her career where she can now run for as long as she wants, knowing she is assured of legendary status.
It is a philosophy she is taking into her comeback race in Berlin on Sunday when she competes in the 1500m at the final TDK Golden League meeting of the season - and coming with it will hopefully be normality.
Since Holmes returned to England, her face has not left the television screens, let alone the national newspapers or magazines. She has appeared on programmes from breakfast shows to evening shows to children’s shows to chat shows and this week she is cover star on Hello!
That honour is normally reserved for the biggest A-list celebrities and the publication devotes endless pages to pictures of her and her family.
But on Sunday afternoon at the newly rebuilt Olympic stadium in Berlin, she will go back to what she knows best.
"So much has happened since I returned home from the Olympics but I have managed to get in as much training as I can during these last two weeks,” confirmed Holmes.
"I am in good shape but the best thing about when I run now is that I do not have to do it, but because I want to do it."
Her achievements have propelled her to new heights in Britain. She is the only British woman athlete to win two Olympic gold medals and she became the first Briton since the Games of 1920 in Antwerp to win the middle distance double.
Albert Hill was the last.
She now plans to run only a handful of times until the end of the season, including the IAAF World Athletics Final in Monaco next weekend.
”I am not sure what distance I am going to be doing in Monaco but I am not going to do both. I still feel fit, which is great, but I am going to get to the stage where if I push my body too much I will get injured or ill and I am not going to let that happen.”
”It is at its limit. I have to be sensible. I am going to do it for the enjoyment factor. I have been a senior runner for 12 years but like a lot of people probably, I have never had the recognition that I maybe should have got. It is now coming out in one fell swoop, which is hard to take in.”
But, when she removes all the gloss which has come with her victory, her ambition and desire to be a runner remains strong.
Holmes, who won 800m bronze at the Olympics in Sydney and silver at the World championships in Paris last year, confirmed, "what I achieved in Athens is the ultimate and nothing will ever top it in terms of achievement. But I would like to win an indoor title and next year, maybe go for the European Indoors. Whatever happens I have no plans to retire.”
By an IAAF Correspondent