Mara Yamauchi studied PPE at St Anne’s between 1992 and 1995. She came sixth in the women’s marathon in Beijing in 2008 and has been selected as one of the first members of Great Britain's athletics team for London 2012.
In order to be selected for London 2012 I had to run a marathon in under 2 hours and 31 minutes before 23 April 2012, which was the date when the final selections were made. On 20 November I finished third in the Yokohama International Women’s Marathon, clocking 2 hours, 27 minutes and 24 seconds – comfortably inside the Olympic qualifying time of 2 hours and 31 minutes.
My personal best, achieved in 2009, is 2 hours, 23 minutes and 12 seconds. In theory this meant running under 2 hours 31 minutes should have be easy, but I have a long-term hamstring tendon injury which I have had to manage.
I train twice or three times a day and have one day off every eight days or so. My longest run before a marathon is 40km and I do a mixture of easy runs, tempo runs, intervals, hills, and so on. I also do drills, weights and sprints.
In Beijing I finished sixth, just 22 seconds off the bronze medal. I learnt a great deal about what training works for me, hydration, recovery from training, altitude and so on which was all very useful.
An athlete is very lucky if the Games take place to their home country while they are still competing. But I am under no illusions about the pressure and extra challenges that a home Olympics brings. I hope I can just enjoy it, and perform at my very best.
I started training seriously for the first time when I was a student at Oxford, so it was then that I discovered I enjoyed running and had some talent for it. I also learned some training techniques during that time.
Studying at Oxford is a fabulous opportunity to be involved in sport. You can enjoy sports while still finding time for your studies, if you are organised and committed. Oxford has some great facilities and role models. And of course being young is a great advantage if you are an elite athlete, as I have discovered now in my advancing years. I will be one of the oldest members of Team GB!
