Last year’s runner-up Mara Yamauchi has made an epic journey through five countries in six days in order to run in Sunday’s London Marathon.

The Briton set off from her training base in Alberquerque, New Mexico last Thursday and with flights over Europe disrupted because of ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland, she travelled through Portugal, Spain and France before finally arriving on Wednesday.

“I did think at times it wasn’t worth it,” Yamauchi told reporters on Thursday.

“There were lots of moments where we didn’t know what was going to happen so we just tried to keep heading towards London,” added the 36-year-old.

Having managed to get a flight from the U.S. to Lisbon, Yamauchi and her husband Shigetoshi travelled by taxi and rental car to Madrid, then Paris and finally Le Touquet near the French coast where a private plane took them to Shoreham on the southern tip of England.

Organisers have spent 150,000 pounds ($230,700) on emergency travel arrangements to get the top athletes to London including a private jet to transport runners from Kenya and Eritrea to Spain.

SPURNED MICROPHONE

When Yamauchi was asked if she thought African athletes had received preferential treatment, race director Dave Bedford strode to the front of the room and, spurning a microphone, told the reporter that when organisers were told flights were starting to return to normal, the Briton was already in Paris.

“The alternative would’ve been to have sat on her arse and done nothing … so it’s very easy looking back at this to say why didn’t you just take it easy and just hope things went right?,” said Bedford.

“For me the message is she wasn’t happy with that and wanted to give herself every single chance of being in London.”

Yamauchi, who in the absence of world record holder Paula Radcliffe is Britain’s best medal hope, said: “The thought of sitting back and letting Dave Bedford do things in London never crossed my mind. I thought, ‘We’ve just got to get there’.”

The surprise winner of last month’s New York half marathon ahead of American favourite Deena Kastor said, with her race preparation disrupted, the priority was to catch up on some sleep before Sunday.

“Physically it was pretty exhausting. We’ve been on flights and cars … pretty much continuously,” said Yamauchi.

“We spent loads of time trying to find another flight, a rental car, so we didn’t have much time to sleep … we didn’t even have time for meals really, we were just grabbing sandwiches.

“Mentally it was also quite tiring sorting out the journey. On the positive side I wasn’t really worrying about the race,” added Yamauchi.

“It’s been a mental roller-coaster so having finally got here, if I run well on Sunday it’ll be the icing on the cake. I’ve never prepared for a race like this before — obviously.”

(Editing by Tony Jimenez. To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)