Oxford's Mara Yamauchi continued her preparations for the London 2012 Olympic Marathon with sixth place in the BUPA Great Manchester Run yesterday.

Yamauchi, the former Headington Roadrunner, led for the first three kilometres of the 10,000m event – her first event of the year, before crossing the line in 32mins 28secs.

Kenya’s Linet Masai won the race in 31.35.

Haile Gabrselassie was the men’s winner in 27.39.

“I am happy with my time and performance because I have not done a lot of speed work and I am training for the marathon, so I am not 10K sharp,” said Yamauchi.

“I am training for August and I am on track.”

Yamauchi added: “We were doing 3.10 per kilometre and I thought ‘this is a bit to fast for me’, but I felt really comfortable.”

She added: “I was racing. I ran 100 per cent.

“You never run as fast in training as you do in a race so it was good training.”

Yamauchi is now preparing for next weekend when she competes in the London 10,000m.

That will be followed by the Second Annual Carmel half-marathon in the Netherlands on June 9.

She will have one more race after that before the Olympics, but has not decided where yet.

Yamauchi will do her training from London before joining the GB team at the pre-Olympic preparation camp in Portugal.

JESSICA Ennis was denied a personal best in the 100m hurdles because only nine of the necessary ten barriers were laid out by the organisers.

The Team GB heptathlete clocked 12.75secs, but her time does not stand.

Ennis said: “I am so annoyed. I still had a good competitive race, but I’ve just not got the result I wanted.”

Organisers said they would conduct an investigation into the embarrassing error.