When Mizuki Noguchi lines up for the start of the 32nd real,-Berlin Marathon on Sunday morning, the reigning Olympic champion,s goals are anything but modest. The 27-year-old Japanese has come to Berlin with the hope of becoming just the sixth woman to dip under the formidable 2:20 barrier.

"My training,s been going really well," Noguchi said. "I have heard that Berlin is a fast course and the weather will be quite good."

During her recent training stint at her St. Moritz, Switzerland training base, she has reportedly produced time trials that put her in 2:19 shape. Besides several 40 kilometer runs, her training regimen included strenuous track sessions that her coach Nobuyuki Fujita playfully describes as "crazy": "45 400s," she said. "Some European men runners were surprised to see us do those repetitions on the track over and over again."

Her aim here is Yoko Shibui,s Japanese record of 2:19:41 set on this course last year, perhaps even Sun Yingjie,s Asian record, which is just two seconds faster.

Noguchi has contested four marathons, winning three. She debuted with a 2:25:35 victory in Nagoya in March of 2002, and followed up with a 2:21:18 personal best in Osaka in January 2003. She finished runner-up to Catherine Ndereba at the 2003 World Championships in Paris before winning the Olympic title nearly a year later. Yet despite her immediate success over the distance, her appearance in the German capital will be unlike any other marathon she,s run.

"This is the first time that I,ll be running with pacemakers," she said, speaking through a pair of translators. "I realize that I,ll have to be in charge and giving the instructions. I,ll have to use the pacemakers as a kind of rival to help me run the pace I want to."

"This is really a new experience for Mizuki," said Race Director Mark Milde. "Until now she,s either been running in championship races or in the strong domestic races, against other women only."

Since capturing the Olympic title last August, Noguchi has raced sparingly. Swamped by public appearance requests and simply needing a break, she didn,t resume serious training until last March, she said, six months after her victory in Athens.

In her last race, she was third at a half-marathon in Sapporo, Japan, finishing in 1:09:24 behind Ndereba and Japanese Yasuyo Iwamoto. In late spring she contested a pair of races on the track, clocking 15:42.53 and 31:44.29 for 5000 and 10,000 meters.

"As a person, I haven,t changed at all," she said. "But what goes on around me, my environment, that did change after the Olympic Games." With several dozen Japanese journalists and television crews present in Berlin, that environment isn,t likely to change any time soon.

While her ambitions here are high, she harbors no illusions about attacking Paula Radcliffe,s 2:15:25 world record. That, she said, will come with time.

"Of course I,d like to run a world record, but the world record is a very good one. Step by step I,d like to get closer to it."

In Athens last summer, the hot conditions forced Radcliffe to drop out of the race, and Noguchi said she,d like to square off against the Briton again.

"One day I certainly would like to be running a race against Paula," she said. Such a meeting prior to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing isn,t likely to transpire though, Milde said.

"A race between Noguchi, Radcliffe and some of the other big stars is difficult," he said. "Realistically, it doesn,t look very likely."

Noguchi has surveyed the course and in general, liked what she saw. "It,s very flat, but I was a little unsettled by lots of corners. So I,ll have to be very wary of that."