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By then she had had to recover from a stress fracture in her right fibula and a tear in her calf, but the latest in a litany of injuries put paid to her hopes of making it to Beijing.
"It was tough to take," she said. "I stayed in America through the summer, I know it was 'avoiding' it a little bit, but I was going to find it tough at home in Ireland talking to people about missing out on the Olympics."
Ultimately Cullen blamed herself for the injuries, having pushed herself beyond the limit in her pursuit of the qualifying standard for Beijing, but rather than allow despondency overcome her she simply set new targets for the year.
She returned in September and finished second behind Olympic 10,000 metres bronze medallist Shalane Flanagan at the USA 5km Championships in Rhode Island, where she has been based since taking up a sports scholarship at Providence College.
Now a social science graduate Cullen, who was American Colleges champion over 5,000 metres two years ago, has stayed on in Rhode Island where she is coached by Ray Treacy, brother of Ireland's 1984 Olympic silver medallist, John.
"Because it was my first race back, it was more about feeling good and just getting used to the pain of racing again," she said. "When you've been away from it for so long you have to teach your body that hurt. For me it was more that than anything else."
The next goal for the 26-year-old from Drumcliffe, Co Sligo was a performance at December's European Cross-Country Championships in Brussels that would confirm to her that she was back to full strength and fitness. It's precisely what she got - in top-class company she finished fourth, just two seconds off a medal, bettering her previous best finish in the race, 11th three years before.
Never outside the top three in the opening stages of a gruelling race - the conditions getting the better of Olympic steeplechase champion and world record holder Gulnara Galkina-Samitova, who could only finish 12th - Cullen, who led briefly at the halfway stage, was in sight of bronze going in to the final lap, but was beaten to the line by Portuguese runner Ines Monteiro. Kenyan-born Hilda Kibet, now running for the Netherlands, won the race, with Portugal's Jessica Augusto taking silver.
"I would have loved a medal, I gave myself every chance, I got stuck in, but the muddy parts took it out of me - and I'm not exceptionally good on the mud. But I was in good company, I'll take it for today and look forward to Dublin, I'm even more excited to go for the medal next time," she said in reference to this year's Championships which will be hosted in Santry in December.
Having admitted that she struggled at times to "see the light at the end of tunnel" in 2008 and that she "didn't know if I was going to ever be able to get back healthy again" Cullen's performance in Brussels was a fair indication of her character.
Bouncebackability, they call it.
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