Anglo Celtic Plate 2013 - Men's Preview

With the race fast approaching I thought I'd pull together a list of the runners and riders in this year's Anglo Celtic Plate. The UK 100km championships are run alongside this event so we can expect some very competitive ultra distance racing.

As an overview I am very excited about the runners turning up this year. There are some very fast marathoners stepping up to the longer distance and it will be very interesting to see how they fair up. It does seems that ultra running is starting to be seen as a more serious athletic discipline (as it bloody should be) and I think this is really positive for our sport.

ENGLAND TEAM

Adrian Marriott
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=1001
Blog: http://adrianmarriott.blogspot.co.uk/

A quick glance at Adrian's TPOT profile and you can see that this guy is fast. With a 2h18 marathon to his name his base line speed represents a step-up in class relative to your average ultrarunner. I will be watching his debut over the 100km very closely (well I will be running too). Potential to achieve the British Athletics A standard for the UK championships (7h01, or 6m45 m/pm in old money...)

Dave Mitchinson
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=1116
Blog: http://www.o2creation.co.uk/running-blog-dave-mitchinson-new-year-new-challenge/

Another fast runner over the shorter distances. 2012 saw his move to run the "short" ultras. Pleased to don the England vest in 2012, the blog above shows Dave has ambition (and the potential) to run in the GB vest later in the year.

Craig Holgate
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=47179

A fantastic debut at last year's ACP. Not many can run sub 7h30 on a debut run, particularly not in the heat wave in Wales last year. It won't take much of an improvement in his time before it looks incredibly competitive. Well known for his impressive victory in the Thames Path 100.

Marcus Scotney
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=12643
Blog: http://marcusscotney.blogspot.co.uk/

Marcus was dissapointed with last year's 7h40 run at the ACP. However later in the year he went on to improve his marathon PB to 2h32 and has a best of 7h18 for 100km. Not too shabby.

Harry Johnston
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=111311
Blog: This one.

A 100km best of 7h51. I will do my uptmost to have a big movement in this number in Perth.

SCOTLAND TEAM

Thomas Loehndorf
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=78109
Blog: http://runnertom.blogspot.co.uk/

We raced our first 100km together in Perth back in 2011, he beat he then and if he continues to improve he will beat me again. Third place at last year's ACP and with a great deal of experience of racing long on trails and roads, he will be a tough competitor.

Marco Consani
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=46100
Blog: http://marcoonrunning.blogspot.co.uk/

Marco's debut at the ACP was only 7 seconds slower than my best. I expect we might be sharing a laps together in Perth. Marco offers fantastic motivation for logging those hard winter miles. Find out more here.

David Gardiner
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=4427

Given his clear pedigree over the shorter distances it can be of no suprise that David produced a sub 7h30 performance over the 100km distance back in 2011. Last year David showed that he also runs well on the trails with a 4th place finish at the Highland Fling.

Ian Symington & Donnie Campbell
Neither have powerof10 profiles, which I expect means little experience when it comes to road running. However a quick google of these two has bought up a little information.

Both runners have had experience of long trail races and most references I can find on Ian suggests he is usually at the front of the race.

Both have shown good form at the recently run Country 2 Capital 45 mile race.
http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/index.php?p=17&itemType=news&itemId=6878

Donnie is clearly a man well suited to running long. With a fantastic solo run back in 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-13838901

WALES TEAM

Iain Ridgway
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=68502

With an impressive winter Paddy Buckley run Iain clearly has a great ability to endure.
http://www.mudsweatandtears.co.uk/2012/12/04/a-winter-paddy-iains-winters-tale/

Iain has also posted a cracking sub2h40 training marathon earlier this month suggesting he is coming into form at the right time. Almost certain to run better than in 2011 when he raced with is arm in plaster.

John Pares
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=15101

More of a 24 hour specialist, but you can never underestimate the 24hour commonwealth champion. Looks to be running Spartathlon later in the year. A nice history of John's running career can be found here.

Jeremy Mower
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=9472

Jeremy recently recaptured the Welsh ultramarathon title with a new PB at the Barry 40 mile track race. Jeremy seemed to struggled in the heat at last year's event, let's hope he can take his form from Barry combined with some cooler weather to get a new PB.

Jason Scanlon
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=48604

Seems that Jason stepped up to ultra distance racing last year. He clearly has good speed with a 75m half marathon to his name. Surely we will see huge improvements here.

IRELAND TEAM

Daniel Doherty
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=112725
Blog: http://runningmad-dan.blogspot.co.uk/

Dan has rather quickly propelled himself to the top of UK road and trail ultra running. He will have some tough competition in Perth but this will hopefully help him towards that sub 7 hour run that he has been getting very close to.

OTHERS WORTH A MENTION

Grant Jeans
TPOT: http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=77221

With a 7h11 100km to his name Grant is definitely worth a mention. He recently ran at the Barry 40 mile track race but was a DNF. Let's hope there was no serious injury here as he is a competitor that will certainly add depth to the field.

WISH THEY WERE THERE

There are a few people who will not be at the UK championships My understanding is that other than Dan Doherty the Irish team will not be there. I can only assume they are saving themselves for the European championships a month later. They have a very strong team whose presence will be missed.

From the England team there is no Allen Smalls or Paul Fernandez. Allen the current UK champion is a valuable asset to the England team but hopefully our replacements can do him justice. Paul who has not yet excelled at the 100km distance has shown fantastic form with PBs over the marathon last year and a recent sub 4h20 run at the Barry track race. Whilst I'm not sure on his plans I wouldn't be suprised if he is saving himself for a good race at London this year. The only positive of this is that I probably wouldn't have been selected if they put their names forward.

The Scottish team have Craig Stewart absence. It is a shame we have not seen much of Craig on the roads since his incredible 7h01 100km debut in 2011. Scotland still have a team with 3 runners capable of sub 7h30 runs which makes them a force to be reckoned with.

Sean McCormack has pulled out of the Wales team due to injury so unfortunately they will not be bringing the full team of 5.

ANY MORE INFORMATION

I've basically compiled my short comments from a few google searches and interpreting results I've seen on powerof10. If you have any more interesting information on the runners please let me know and I am happy to add some more information above (same goes if you want references removed).

So now you know exactly who's turning up, what do you think? Where will you place, who will you be looking out for? What's going to be the winning time? Well, with 100km racing there is only one thing that is certain and that is that anything can happen.

Weeks 8, 9 & 10 (18th Feb - 10th March)

WEEK 8

Mon - Rest

Tue - 10km in 38m39 - Fitness test for Barry

Wed - 4.75m (7m34 m/pm)

Thu - Rest, calf tightened up again yesterday 

Fri - Rest

Sat - Rest

Sun - 7.5m (8m00 m/pm)

TOTAL MILEAGE - 19.8

Okay so a bit of catching up to do here. The blog was designed to capture the highs and the lows of the build up to the ACP, but it is funny how when it isn't going quite so well the blog is that little bit harder to pull together. If you have seen the results of Barry you will have seen that I was a no show. Week 8 was a week of internal debate with myself trying to work out if I was fit enough to run at Barry. One day I felt good, for example after Tuesday's sesion I was almost certain I would be running. Wednesday's run and my calf was sore again and so by Thursday I decided I should do the sensible thing and pull out. 

Pretty disappointed, but to my delight on Friday the race director (Mick McGeoch) e-mailed me the race programme. The Barry race programme is quite a piece of literature at 20 pages and I would recommend to anyone that they should enter the race just to feature in the program. Anyway, here is a snippet of what he wrote about me.

No: 288 Harry Johnston (Kingston & Polytechnic Harriers)

Age 26. Second youngest in the race, Harry has made a huge improvement in the short time he has been in the sport. His range of distances and performances makes for fascinating reading. In 2012 he improved his best marathon time to 2:37:54 in October in Amsterdam where he placed 71st. He also has some very impressive ultra marks with a best 100km of 7:51:21 in the 2011 Anglo Celtic Plate in Perth, where he was 10th, and more recently 8:03:32 last June in Biel, Switzerland. He doesn’t just race over long distances though, and in 2012 recorded PBs of 9:12 for 3000 metres, 16:26 for 5000 metres, 16:14 for 5 km on the road and 56:31 for 10 miles. On the professional front, Harry has just qualified as an Actuary, and brings a great support crew (wife Emily and friend Kevin) to help him on his Barry 40 debut. Certainly one to watch.

What a way to massage your ego when you are feeling pretty crappy about things. This really did cheer me up. Mick wrote similar amounts on each of the runners, he really does seem to put his heart and soul into this race. The results can be found here, some very good performances at the front with Paul Fernandez on great form and an outstanding performance from previous European 100km silver medallist Pieter Vermeesch

Maybe next year...

WEEK 9

Mon - Rest

Tue - 7.5m (7m47 m/pm)

Wed - 7.75m (7m15 m/pm)

Thu – 10 x 1km off 90s (7m00 m/pm)

Fri - Rest

Sat – 14.75m (7m46 m/pm including parkrun)

Sun – 23.3m (7m43 m/pm)

TOTAL MILEAGE – 60.3

The previous Thursday I took a 2h20 car journey (most of which I was stuck in traffic on the M4) to see my chiropractor. I have not visited him since moving away from Maidenhead as I deemed it to no longer be convenient. However, enough was enough and I believed if anyone could fix me it would be him. We started the session by performing a simple test. Walk on the spot with your eyes closed and see what happens. After about 20 seconds of marching I opened my eyes and had rotated 30 degrees to the left. 30 minutes of manipulations and crunching of various joints and we re-performed the test. Now I am facing forward after this test, superb fixed (I bloody hope). Never have I felt more comfortable and happy to be in a small room, basically naked with another man! I felt like he had fixed me.

With that I used this as a re-introduction week. I had planned a longer run at the weekend, but I didn't quite feel comfortable going for a 4 hour romp so cut it back to 3 hours. My calf in general was still tight but my trip to the chiropractor meant I had re-established control in my ankle and I was no longer getting inflammation in my calf. The tension was slowly easing with each run. Not a huge week, but a week nonetheless.

On Saturday I ran a parkrun with my wife and she achieved a big PB, nice to see one of us is moving in the right direction.

WEEK 10

Mon – 11m (7m20 m/pm,  progressive run)

Tue AM – Circuits

Tue PM – 5.6km time trial (19m35, 5m25 m/pm)

Wed – 7.5m (8m20 m/pm)

Thu AM – 29 x 500m off 30 secs (rep pace c. 5m50 m/pm)

Fri -  Rest

Sat – 29m (8m07 m/pm)

Sun AM – Weights, cleans and squats

Sun – 16m (7m49 m/pm)

TOTAL MILEAGE – 79.3

With last week going so well, okay not amazing but at least I was running. This week has really represented a true week of training yet again. Boy am I pleased. The weeks were fast disappearing and my chances of running well if at all at ACP were starting to potentially look bleak. Hopefully all that worry was for nothing. I just need to string something together next week to get my confidence up and then a short taper.

Tuesday's session was a 5.8km time trial. 14.5 laps of the track pretty much on my own to see what I could achieve. My total time was 19m35 and I passed 5km in 16m45. Very pleasing for a training run and also a great test of the condition of my calf.

Thursday's session of 29 x 500m off 30 seconds was clearly designed for the track, but work commitments meant I was to do this one on a lumpy road loop near work early in the morning. Pace coming out at around 5m50 and for a man who doesn't usually operate that early in the morning I was again very happy.

Another parkrun with the wife on Saturday. Unfortunately no PB this week, and I tried to reassure her it was because it was more muddy than last week (it was). When the summer comes we will both see some faster running I'm sure. No parkrun next week as my wife is away skiing whilst I stay at home for the final big training weekend.

A few more interesting things going on here, including winning a really cool trophy and the release of the full England team which threw up a few suprises. But I will save that for my next blog post...there is enough on here already.

Hope everyone's last few weeks are going well. If you've been in a rough patch like me all I can say is keep the faith.

Mileage so far: 39, 73, 102, 31, 29, 76, 40, 20, 60, 79