Age:  38 (13 August 1973)

Club: Harrow AC

Coach: Shige Yamauchi

Website: Mara Yamauchi

Event: Marathon


Career Highlights:

After a number of setbacks Mara Yamauchi clocked 2:27:24 in the November 2011 Yokohama marathon, which meant along with Paula Radcliffe she has been selected for the Olympic Marathon 2012. She wrote in her blog: "2011 has been a year of ups and downs, or rather one long down and then a sudden up!"

Oxford Politics and Economics graduate Mara ran for the UK cross country team in 1997 but then used her qualifications to work as a diplomat in Japan. But from 2005 she came back to run some amazing marathon times. She got her time down from 2:39:16 to 2:31:52 in London, following this 2:31:26 in Helsinki and in her third marathon in seven months, Yamauchi improved again with 2:27:38 in Tokyo.

In 2006, she improved her time again, dropping to 2:25:13 in the London Marathon. Three marathons later and Mara broke the British V35 record, running 2:25:03. Her best year to date was 2009, when she ran a 68:29 half marathon and 2:23.12 for the 26.2 miles, which ranks her second in the all time UK records and keeps her at the top of the V35 list. Injuries such as plantar fasicitits have caused frustrating lows, but she's still managed to run seven marathons in sub 2:30, the UK marathon qualifying time for the Olympics.


Quirky facts:

She was named after the Mara river in Kenya where she lived until the age of eight and where her parents had lived for 25 years.

The Running Bug's prediction for Mara Yamauchi in the London Olympics 2012:

Outside of podium places