Kara Goucher with her 10,000m bronze medal (Getty Images)

Osaka, Japan - It may be true that the USA's Kara Goucher won her 10,000m bronze because the otherwise-dominant Africans left the door open for such a surprise. Even so, Goucher explained on the day after her race, it takes a lot of work to get through that door when it's left open.

Since leaving Boulder, Colorado in 2005 to train with coach Alberto Salazar in Portland, Oregon, Goucher and her husband Adam have made training a full-time job.

Since winning the 2000 NCAA Cross Country Championships for the University of Colorado - a title Adam also won, in 1997 - a series of injuries and incomplete recoveries put Goucher through "four years of absolute frustration. It was obvious that we needed a change."

The Gouchers chose Salazar's Portland group over another group training in Madison, Wisconsin because of Salazar's focus on all aspects of preparation. "Madison had great coaches," said Goucher, "but Portland also had great doctors."

Once the Gouchers were healthy, Salazar encouraged them to focus not just on running, but on recovery and injury prevention. The programme "is about logging the miles--I'm doing 90 miles a week, more than I've ever run--but what takes the time every day is the drills and stretching, the ART (Active Release Therapy, an assisted stretching technique), the massage."

Goucher described a typical day training at altitude for the World Championships which included two runs, but also hours of drills, stretching, running in the pool, and weightlifting. "It's more than a full-time job," she said. "I don't really do anything else."

Goucher started running at the age of eleven, when she won a 440-yard race at school. "I had to pass my boyfriend at the end," she remembers. "It was traumatic." She ran the 800m and mile for the school track team the following year, but didn't really reach national attention (as Kara Wheeler) until 2000, when she won three NCAA championships, two in outdoor track and the third in cross country.

Now that she's won her first international honour, Goucher is still absorbing the idea--and balancing celebration with Adam's preparation for Thursday's 5000m qualifying. "It was 3:00 AM before we got back to the room, and right before we went to bed, I said, 'I need to see proof,' so Adam had to go online and find a picture of me crossing the line. The next morning when I woke up, I said, 'Adam, did I really get third?' He said, 'Go online and see for yourself.' ... I feel bad for him, because he was up all night, and now he pretty much has to sleep until Thursday."

Parker Morse for the IAAF