Hamstring issues and a few bad technique habits have Canberra sprinter Melissa Breen a month behind where she would like to be.
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But Breen has plenty of time to dust off the cobwebs after a promising return at club level and a strong return at the ACT Athletics Championships at the AIS.
Breen ran 11.33 seconds to claim silver in the women's 100m final, hot on the heels of Papua New Guinean Toea Wisil, who ran 11.29 to claim line honours on Saturday.
It was a similar story in Sunday's 200m race, with Breen's time of 23.61 seconds enough for a second-placed finish behind Wisil, in an event the 26-year-old laughs she doesn't like too much.
Performing like she did has Breen brimming with confidence leading into a bumper couple of months, culminating in the Stawell Gift in mid-April.
"Athletics is my life right now, and it won't be forever," Breen said.
"Right now everything that I'm doing is to ensure that I run the best I can on race day. Four races in a 30-hour period, it's really exciting to know that I can handle that and while I'm feeling very tired now, the body is good. I look forward to racing a bit more and gearing up towards nationals."
Australia's fastest woman tweaked her technique on the starting blocks after a few bad habits crept in towards the end of last season, a move that has paid dividends.
"For about three months we swapped my feet around in the blocks, and now I've gone back to my old way," Breen said.
"It's sounds pretty complicated but it's been a worthwhile tool to learn some new skills. Very strange, very foreign, [but] I'm here to learn and improve.
"We have the time, there's no urgency or no rush for anything, so it was a worthwhile challenge for [coach Matt Beckenham] and I to do. It's very different but patience is the key in this sport."
Kelsey Lee-Roberts opened her season with a win in the javelin event, throwing 59.20m to secure a comfortable victory.
Lauren Wells ran a career best on Australian soil of 52.97 to win the women's 400m sprint and backed it up with another victory after she clocked 57.12 in the 400m hurdles.
Meanwhile, Canberra native Zoe Buckman (2:39.47) shattered a 29-year-old national indoor record in the women's 1000m at the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix.
