NEW YORK (AP) – One of these days, Paula Radcliffe will come into the New York City Marathon without something to prove.

She insists she doesn’t seek out the race as a stage for a stirring comeback, that it’s just an event she enjoys. Even if she did win in New York in 2004 to rebound from Olympic disappointment and last year in her first marathon as a mother.

“Yeah, I think that’s just the way it’s worked out,” Radcliffe said Friday. “I mean, desperately I didn’t want it to be that this year. I wanted to be able to come back and defend having had things work out the way I wanted to in Beijing. But that didn’t happen.”

A stress fracture in her thigh limited her training heading into this year’s Olympics, and she had to stop several times during the race to work out pain in her legs. The world record holder finished 23rd.

Radcliffe pronounced herself fit as she tries Sunday to defend her title and become just the second woman to win three NYC Marathons.

The 34-year-old Englishwoman came into the 2004 race less than three months after health problems forced her to drop out of the Olympic marathon in Athens. She beat Susan Chepkemei by three seconds in a thrilling finish.

In 2007, Radcliffe was running her first marathon in more than two years and had battled injuries after giving birth. She defeated Gete Wami by 23 seconds and was able to celebrate afterward with 9-month-old daughter Isla.

She found the 2004 race particularly satisfying “probably because it was my first and because it was kind of re-establishing myself back after what happened in Athens.”

“I think last year it was just really enjoyable just to get out there and just to be racing again. I felt like I had missed it a lot with the time that I had had through pregnancy and then with the injury afterwards,” she added.

“It was a longer break, and I think probably more of a lift in enjoyment and just exhilaration to be back racing again. I remember running over the Verrazano Bridge last year, and it meant a whole big deal to me just to be out there racing with everyone else.”

Radcliffe will face a deep field that includes Wami, who expects to be fresher this time because she won’t be running her second marathon in 35 days. Another Ethiopian, Dire Tune, seeks her second major marathon victory this year after winning in Boston.

And Catherine Ndereba of Kenya, coming off a silver medal in Beijing, chases her ninth major marathon title but her first in New York.

Radcliffe has won seven of the nine marathons she has started. Those two exceptions, though, came on the grandest of stages: the Olympics.

“Obviously the Olympics is something that I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl, and it’s something that’s very important to me to keep trying to go back,” Radcliffe said. “It’s very, very heartbreaking and disappointing that I’ve missed out on. You kind of go through the whole thinking, yeah, how unfair it is that I had to get injured just before the Olympics twice.”

She tries to be philosophical, reminding herself that injuries forced her to drop out of other major marathons as well.

“It’s just that the Olympics is the Olympics and you desperately don’t want it to happen there. … So, yeah, I go through, ‘Is it cursed?”‘ she said. “And I think you just have to be grateful and be thankful because I have had a lot of luck in other races and performed well in other races.”

She’ll be 38 in 2012 and takes solace in knowing Constantina Tomescu-Dita was the same age when she won in Beijing this year.

“I know it’s possible,” Radcliffe said. “I know the odds probably get less each time, but my whole philosophy is keep trying, keep persevering and keep going back there.”

Then there’s the ultimate inspiration. The 2012 Games are in London, where a whole country will urge on one of its own.

“For me, personally, it’s certainly a huge motivation to really keep going and to get out there and perform well,” Radcliffe said. “Because I think that the atmosphere and the support for the Olympics in your home country is an opportunity that I would never, never want to miss.”

AP-ES-10-31-08 1600EDT