Mara Yamauchi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008)

Mara Yamauchi (born Mara Myers^[1]^[2] August 13, 1973) is a British long distance track, and road running athlete. She currently holds the second fastest time by a British woman over the marathon, behind the world-record holder, Paula Radcliffe. "Mara" was named after the Mara River which runs through Kenya where her parents lived for 25 years in total. She is married to a Japanese national.

1 Profile
2 Personal Bests
3 Main Achievements
4 Referencees
5 External links

[edit] Profile

Yamauchi was born in Oxford but lived with her family until she was 8 years old in Nairobi, Kenya.^[3] She started running with Oxford club, Headington Road Runners, while still at school, but took up running seriously when she was an undergraduate at university, competing mainly in cross-country races. After graduating at St Anne's College, Oxford (Politics, Philosophy & Economics)^[4] she studied a one year Master’s degree at the London School of Economics. During this time she joined Parkside AC (now Harrow AC) and was coached by Bob Parker, who coached David Bedford, former 10,000m world record-holder and current director of the Flora London marathon. After finishing her studies, Yamauchi joined the British Foreign Ministry, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), in 1996. In 1997 she earned her first GB vest, finishing 38th in the European Cross Country championships. In 1998 she won the English National Cross Country championships.

From 1998 to 2002 she took a break form athletics, focusing on her work at the British Embassy, Tokyo, Japan. In 2002 she married Shigetoshi Yamauchi, a Japanese national. After returning to live in the UK in 2002, she started running seriously again, under the FCO’s flexible working scheme which enabled her to job-share and then work part-time. She ran her first marathon in April 2004 at the London marathon, placing 17th in 2:39:16. She also earned selection for GB again, running in the Chiba ekiden relay race in Japan in November 2004. In 2005 she ran her second marathon (2:31:52) at London, earning selection for the 2005 World Championships in Athletics in Helsinki, where she finished 18th and won a team bronze medal. In November 2005 she ran another PB, this time in the Tokyo International Women’s marathon (2:27:38).

In December 2005 she was selected for GB’s support scheme for elite athletes, the Lottery-funded UK Sport World Class Performace Programme. In January 2006 she took unpaid leave from the FCO to focus on preparing for the 2008 Beijing Olympic marathon, and moved to Tokyo, Japan with her husband. Yamauchi won the bronze medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games 10,000m race. In April 2006 she became the 2nd fastest British woman ever behind world record-holder Paula Radcliffe, finishing 6th in the London marathon (2:25:13). On September 10, 2006 Yamauchi won the Rotterdam Half Marathon finishing in 1:10:36 beating Mindaye Gishu who won the Rotterdam Marathon earlier that year and Japanese Aya Manome. On 22 April 2007 Yamauchi was the leading Briton in the London Marathon, finishing 6th.

In April 2007 she joined Second Wind AC, a new club set up in Japan by Manabu Kawagoe, the former coach of the Shiseido running club. She set a new personal best in winning the 2008 Osaka Marathon in a time of 2:25:10.