Five months ago the Oxford-born athlete endured a six-day travel nightmare from Albuquerque, New Mexico, after the erupting Icelandic volcano led to the closure of European airspace. Still exhausted after her ordeal, she finished the Virgin London Marathon a weary 10th.
This time Yamauchi needed just a short, "unremarkable" flight from her high-altitude training camp in St Moritz and she is looking forward to a more positive performance as she warms up for her debut in the New York Marathon in November.
"I'm going to give it 100 per cent, if that's good enough to win then I'll be over the moon," she said.
"If it isn't, it will still be useful marker as to where I am in my training, but if I'm feeling good on the day of the race I think I could be up there."
It will be Yamauchi's third appearance in the Great North Run, having finished 22nd in 2004 and sixth in 2005, but since then she has emerged as a world-class distance runner after finishing sixth at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and second in the 2009 London Marathon.
Earlier this year she set a course record to win the New York Half Marathon.
The Olympic gold medallist, Romania's Constantina Dita, will be among her opponents for the 13.1-mile race from Newcastle to South Shields, along with former champion Berhane Adere, of Ethiopia ,and Portugal's Ana Dulce Félix, who was third last year.
"I don't think I'm in personal-best shape but if I could run close to 70 minutes I'd be happy," said Yamauchi, 37, who will be aiming to be the first British winner since Paula Radcliffe in 2003.
"As this is my first race since London, I'm not quite sure what to expect."
In the men's race, Ethiopian marathon world record-holder Haile Gebreselassie will be making his Great North Run debut in what will be the 30th staging of the world's largest half-marathon.
In the absence of defending champion Martin Lel, Gebrselassie's main opposition is likely to come from American Dathan Ritzenhein, who finished third in last year's World Half Marathon Championships in Birmingham, and Moroccan Abderrahim Bouramdane, who was fourth in this year's London Marathon.
Scotland's Andrew Lemoncello will also be in action.
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