2022 was a breakthrough year for Jarlath McKenna. He won and set new course records in both The Wall 100km ultra along Hadrian’s Wall and the 50 mile Lakes in a Day race. 2023 started with a victory in March at the British Masters Cross Country Championship over a 5.7-mile course. Less than a month later, he was back running an ultra, and winning the British 100km title at the Anglo-Celtic Plate in Northern Ireland. He is still relatively unkown to the wider running community. I chatted to him to find out more about him, those races, and also his upcoming 100-mile debut at the Lakeland 100 in a few days on the 28th of July.

AS. So, where are you from originally, Jarlath?

Jarlath McKenna with the British 100km Championship shield. pic Adrian Tarit Stott

Who is Jarlath McKenna

JM. I am from Northern Ireland. A place called Cookstown, County Tyrone, so fairly central in Northern Ireland.

AS. More people in the ultra world probably know a bit about you now, but a lot of people will still be wondering, Who on earth is Jarlath McKenna.?”
Briefly tell us about your sporting history, if you like, so people know more about you.
Did you do any sport at school?

JM. No, not really. I always liked sports, but I was never any good. At school, I was quite small. Now I’m maybe above average height, but at school, I was a pretty small skinny kid, and I wasn’t very physical. I think the school sports, like football and stuff, didn’t suit me particularly well. I was active, but I wasn’t very good at sports.

AS. How did you get into running as life progressed?

JM. I first tried running at university. Just off my own back as something I wanted to try. I ran for about six weeks, and both my knees gave up. In hindsight, I think it was the shoes. I didn’t have the right running shoes. I stopped at that point. I didn’t look at it again until another ten years passed. Then, at one of my jobs I got involved in a university team. There’s a Hyde Park relay between Universities. We put together a staff team. I had never run before apart from the time it didn’t work out. I found that compared to some of the others in the team, who were a lot more sporty, I was fairly decent, and that was encouraging. When I left that job, for my leaving voucher, they gave me a sports voucher for some running shoes. After I left research, I had more time on my hands because I got a regular nine-to-five job. I just had the evenings to myself, and I took running up as something to pass the time. I think that must have been around 2010 or 2011.

AS. Were you racing a lot of the time? Looking at your “Power of 10,” you did a lot of Park Runs over the years. Were you taking part in any other races, or just going with the flow?

JM. For the first couple of years, I didn’t race much. I want to say I didn’t know much about the racing scene. I knew about the big city stuff, but I wasn’t part of a club. It wasn’t until I joined Bristol and West, I think it was 2013, that I started to understand that I could go to a race of some kind nearly every other day if I wanted.
That’s when I started to get into regular racing, and I took up Parkrun at that point too. I got to know people in the Bristol area and got involved more from there. I did lots of racing with the club, like cross country. I was never any good on the track, but I did sometimes make up the team, and I tried my hands at different things.
The coaches are encouraging too, which is brilliant.

AS. Would you say you were being “semi-coached’ then by people in the club?

JM. Yes! I wasn’t being individually coached. I would go to the club training sessions, so in that sense, I was being coached.
I picked up the basics and the principles of training, but I didn’t have a personal plan or anything. For many years I was targeting a marathon distance and aim for one marathon a year. I built my year around that. My winter training was built around building up to a spring marathon. I would then ease off before maybe a big autumn race. I’d do a half marathon or something and then build again in the winter for the next spring.
That was kind of my routine. I just adapted the amount of training I did around that. Obviously, for a marathon, I was building up the longer runs, and with the club sessions, I think there was some logic to it.

AS. I think you were doing something right because your marathon improved to 2.24. A lot of people would be very impressed with that, and many ultra runners would be happy with it.

JM. At the time, I feel like I could have gone a bit quicker. Not loads, but a bit. I don’t think it quite happened. I tended to drop off in the last six miles, which I guess most people do, but I never quite got the pacing right. Then I got a bit older, and other things got in the way, and I maybe started to lose motivation.

Running his first Ultramarathon’s

AS. How have you been led astray into ultras?

JM. Well, it’s not a long story. I think it was when I was at my best in the marathon. I tried this ultra-marathon around Bristol. It’s called the Green Man Ultra. It’s not super long, like 46 miles, I think. It was on different surfaces. A bit of a mix of terrain. I’d done that a couple of times back then to test the water. I didn’t enjoy it that much, and I swore I’d never do another ultra. So I gave up on Ultra for a while.
Then, when COVID came, it broke my momentum of doing a marathon every spring. I have just been on autopilot doing a marathon each year.
Covid broke up that momentum, and I turned to try out a bit more trail and fell. I got into the fells more, just as a test, and that led back to the ultras. I think that maybe some of the events I was reading about just sort of piqued my interest more too.

AS. Were you up in Newcastle by this time?

JM. Yes, I’d moved to Newcastle. I think I’ve been up here for about five years now.
AS. So you had more opportunities to get to the trails and fells?
JM. Yes. I still don’t do a lot of stuff in the Fells, but I do get out a bit more than I used to.

Two course records in 2022.

AS. Lockdown training must have influenced that because, in 2022, you had a minor breakthrough. You ran The Wall Race along Hadrian’s Wall.

JM. At the start of 2022, I aimed to do the Lakes in a Day 50-mile race in October. As I built up mentally for that, I thought I’d give “The Wall” a go. Although it was a bit longer at 100km, time-wise, it could work out almost identically. In my head, it was probably similar time-wise on my feet. It was a bit more road than what I’m used to, so I gave The Wall a go as a build-up to Lakes in a Day. It wasn’t originally in the plan.

AS. As the coaches say, the stopwatch doesn’t lie. You broke the course record for The Wall and still have the fastest time. Not that it’s not a high-quality race, but there are some competent names below you.

JM. If I’m honest, as you say, it’s not particularly competitive. They sell themselves not so much as a race but as an event for people to complete, which is fine. It was a good introduction for me in that sense. Lot’s of aid stations, and it’s a perfect race for someone who wants a fun summer event,

AS. Moving forward to Lakes in a Day. That’s quite a different event. I don’t know how much climbing there is in The Wall, but it’s a pretty runnable event, whereas Lakes in a Day has a lot of good climbs.

How did you adapt training between The Wall and getting ready for doing the Lakes and getting up over Blencathra and along the Helvellyn Ridge and things?

JM. I think for the Lakes in a Day, I tried to recce the course. I recce’d all of it at least twice, even bits of it three times. I would say I knew the terrain quite well, and I was getting used to doing some elevation too. I don’t do lots of other fell stuff, or at least then, I hadn’t done many other fell races, so it wasn’t that I was doing loads of other elevation. I find I don’t struggle too much with the ups. It’s the technical downhills that I need to improve on. When you see proper fell runners, you realise you can learn a lot about descending well.
You see someone like Finlay(Finlay Wild) coming down a hill and you think it’s just not for me. This was the thing in the Three Peaks. I was up there with the leaders at the top of the first summit, Penn-y-Ghent. Then they all just came cruising past on the downhill. The descent was a pretty good path too. It wasn’t even a technical descent.

AS. So after Lakes in a Day last October, you returned to the road with the idea of a spring Marathon but ended up doing a road 100km.
How did that happen, and when and how were you selected for the Northern Ireland Team?

JM. I wasn’t approached, as I don’t think the Northern Ireland selectors knew much about me then. Over time, I had become more active, joining running groups on Facebook, to keep a sense of what was happening. I think I joined the Athletics Northern Ireland Facebook page or something. Anyway, I think it was December. I wasn’t thinking of running a flat 100k or a flat 100 ultra by any chance. It wasn’t really in my mindset. I’d just seen a post on Facebook where they were looking for expressions of interest for Northern Ireland’s selection for the Anglo-Celtic Plate. I saw it, and it was kind of around April time. I was like, well, actually, I usually go home and see my parents around that time anyway because it’s around Easter. I thought, well, instead of a spring marathon, I could be tempted into it. I put my name in. I wasn’t sure if I’d get selected because I think they had some things in the form around having experience of doing looped events and experience of previous 100k’s. To be honest, at that point, I’d done the Lakes in a Day and The Wall, but that was all. So I wasn’t sure if that gave me enough experience for them to select me. I thought I’d inquire anyway and put my hat in the ring, and they selected me, which was nice.
AS. How did that feel to be selected for your home nation?

JM. It was good. If I’m honest, I’ve never really seen myself as competitive as an individual. At some of the local races, yes, but not at a national level. I’d done a little bit with Bristol and West as a team, which was pretty competitive, but never individually. To be selected for your home nation did feel nice. It was great to be part of a team and that sort of thing.

AS. Building up to the 100K, did your training change much? Is there anything, any specific things? Your base level fitness is there for everybody, but building up, sometimes you get lots of words.

JM I definitely upped my overall mileage, not by huge amounts. I’ve always kept my weekly training the same, like the weekday training. I do an interval session and a hill session if I can get that in. Then just some more tempo or easy runs. I did deliberately increase the weekend long run, and I would put in some double runs. You know, a long run on a Saturday and maybe a not as long a run on a Sunday. So some back-to-back runs but not every weekend. I kind of just built it up that way. I wasn’t more specific in terms of doing flat loops or anything. I live in a city, so I do a lot of flat stuff, to be honest.

The 100km Anglo Celtic Plate at Craigavon.

AS. When you’re there on the start line in Craigavon. You’ve got people like Oli Garrod and Gareth King there. Did you feel any sort of imposter syndrome? Saying to yourself “Oh my gosh, Ollie’s just broken the 40-mile record, and he’s also recently run an amazing 50k, and Gareth’s run a 6.30 100km and made the British team.”
What were you feeling on the start line? Did you think you belonged there, or was it just a case of “Okay! I’m just going with this.”

Jarlath winning the AngloCeltic Plate 100km race at Craigavon in April 2023 Pic NIUR  

JM. I don’t try to get too bogged down on times, but I’d looked up what other people had done at last year’s event. I was seeing what Ollie Garard had done at the Barry 40 miler(Ollie had recently lowered the world 40 mile track time at the Barry40 in March 2023) and what Gareth had run with his fast 100km times as well. I knew those two were exceptional, but I didn’t expect to go with them. That wasn’t my plan. I just set off at a pace that I thought was comfortable for me. I had a rough goal pace but it was probably around the pace they were going, so it almost felt natural in those opening miles to just run in that group. I wouldn’t say it was particularly fast, but I wouldn’t have gone any slower either.

So it was probably Gareth who just started to crank the pace up a bit. I consciously thought, initially, I went a little bit with it, and I was like, already maybe 20 miles in, it was starting to feel pretty tough. So I backed off a wee bit, and just ran my own race, more or less to the finish. I was running solo, in a sense. In one way, I’ve always been quite good at judging my pace, so I was just running off what felt right.

AS.Were you just going by feel, or did you have your Garmin on and were taking a sneaky peek at it?
JM. I wasn’t totally running by feel. I do look at my Garmin to see my pace. Some people are just going to go with it. Going into the race, I thought maybe 6.45 was achievable looking at where others had finished last year. I kind of knew roughly, what that was, in terms of pace. So that was maybe my benchmark in a sense. Maybe early on, we were going a bit quicker and then gradually, as it went on, I did slow down a bit, but I didn’t drop hugely off, but I was slowing. I was still just giving my best effort, so even if the pace was dropping off, it wasn’t that I was, It’s not that I could have picked it up. it was just that I was going to feel it. So yes, I was aware of my pace to some extent.

AS. Were you aware Gareth had stopped.? Could you see him, or had he gone off the course?
JM. No, that was a bit of a surprise to me because I think when Gareth and Ollie had gone off, they’d gone way off in the distance, so I just assumed they were way down the road. Then at some point, a bit unexpected, I think it was near the end of one loop, I just came across Gareth, and he was walking. I think he said something like, “Oh, I’ve done his knee in or something, so I can’t remember exactly. So yeah, it was a big shame for him. I knew I had moved up to second at that point, which was a shock to me. I didn’t go in there with big expectations. Then, I didn’t actually realise I had passed Ollie.
At one point, I passed an English runner, but he was going very slow, and I thought, no, that’s not Olie, because he was almost cruising along. I didn’t think any more of it. I didn’t know until I saw the finish tape that I had passed him and had actually won it.

AS. Even your team weren’t telling you?

JM. No. To be fair, I had told them not to tell me anything.
My brother-in-law was crewing for me, and he was just handing me my nutrition as I passed. That’s as much as the team support was, which is probably better actually. As I said, I was running my own race anyway. I wasn’t pushing.

AS. I didn’t realize that. That’s quite a thing to discover at the end of that last loop, at the end of the race. You suddenly realize you’ve won and are the British 100km champion because you are having to go through a finish tape?

JM. I was elated to see the home straight in front of me anyway, and it was really nice, as I ran past the support tents. Everybody was clapping and cheering. I thought they were just clapping and cheering me to the finish. Then, I turned the corner and saw the finish tape up ahead!

AS. The course in Ireland was slightly undulating compared to the flat course in Perth, but the times were still fast.

JM. I quite liked the undulatingness. It felt like it gave a bit more variety. The course was a three-mile loop and almost made it go quicker because you had twists and turns, and ups and downs. I actually enjoyed that as I quite like hills anyway, so it probably favoured me in that sense.

AS. So you are now British 100km road champion, in a time that puts you 6th on the All-Time GB road lists. How did that feel?

JM. I was chuffed with that. It’s mind-boggling. I’m sure more people will pass it soon. I don’t think of myself as sixth in the tradition or anything.

AS. These last two or three years, ever since COVID, I think there has been a buzz about 100k again. There are good marathon runners. People like Ollie and Gareth, who are competent marathon runners, who are now treating 100k as an event in its own right. They just see it as an extension of a marathon. It’s great that guys like that are targeting 100k.

JM. There are so many quality runners at the marathon distance. If I’m running 2.24, even at my best, and I’m past my best at the marathon, I would say that 2.24 is not super competitive. There are lots of club runners that can run a lot quicker than that. So if even a fraction of those made that shot at the 100k, I’m sure there would be times that could topple.

AS. You’re right, but there are also a lot of good marathon runners that have tried 100k, and it hasn’t worked out for them for a few reasons.

THREE PEAKS RACE

 

AS. A month later, you’re back on the trails at the Three Peaks race in Yorkshire. (Writers Note. The Yorkshire 3 Peaks is a 38km/23.5-mile race with 1600 metres of climb. It starts at Horton-in_Ribblesdale, taking in the classic loop of Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough.) You can read about the 3 Peaks race HERE

Jarlath McKenna shorty after the start of this years 3 Peaks race, on the path up to Pen-Y Ghent. Pic Adrian Stott.

JM. The Three Peaks is quite an iconic race. I supposeI just wanted to give it a go. When I signed up for it, I didn’t know it was to be a trial selection race for the World Championship. I wasn’t expecting it to be such a big strong field. In some ways, that was a nice thing because it allowed me to see what the top runners are like and benchmark myself in some respect against them. In that sense, it was very nice that it was a trial for the championships.

AS. I think your 100k times benchmarks you pretty well because that puts you in the top 10 UK all-time, but tell us about your Three Peaks Race.

JM. Three Peaks was tough. I found it a lot tougher than I thought. It was probably one of the toughest runs I’ve ever done. It seemed I was cramping up in every single muscle. I didn’t know that existed. First, my calves went. Then, when I started to go downhill, they would loosen up, and the other bits would go. I found that tough. I think I misjudged things or was a bit ambitious on that first climb for I was hanging on at the end.

AS. It is quite a fast-runnable race in some ways.

JM It is, and that’s why I thought it would suit me quite well. I think I’d only been out in the hills once since maybe December time so I hadn’t done enough elevation. I probably wasn’t prepared in that sense. I’m not that far from the mountains, but I still have to drive probably an hour to get to decent ones. I tend to usually just run out of the house. So I hadn’t done much elevation before the Three Peaks.

AS. You have another adventure coming up next weekend.

JM Yes, I am running the Lakeland 100.

AS. Will it be your first 100?
JM.Yes. It will be my first 100. I think I’m just testing to see what I like or what I don’t like.
I must admit to being a wee bit intimidated by it. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m actually a wee bit scared too.
I’ve seen some experienced runners have entered, which doesn’t bother me as you can’t affect the competition, and I will run my own race. I am a wee bit intimidated by the course having recee’d parts of it. There don’t seem to be any major climbs, just lots of up and down. You can get on a roll for a few miles and enjoy the views before you hit another climb.
I think I will be fine with the extra distance, but as I have never done a 100 miles before, you never know till you get there.

AS. Any event where you’re out for 18, 20 hours or longer, you are going to experience ups and downs. There will be a couple of points when you’re going to feel awful. I think Camille Herron put it very well in a comment recently. Others have said similar things. In an event over 100 miles, you’re problem-solving. Things happen, and you’re just saying to yourself, “OK. This is going on. How do I deal with this?”

JM. Yes, I think the ACP 100k was dead easy in that sense. I had a pre-set nutrition plan. Every three miles, you had a feed station, so you could handle it. I didn’t have to think, and took what I was given each time. I think with something like the Lakeland 100, although there are plenty of food stations along the way, you have to be aware of how much you’ve taken on, and be able to stomach it as well. So that’ll be interesting. Also, it starts at six o’clock in the evening, and it’s my first time running through the night or anything like that. From a sleep perspective, it’ll be a bit of a new challenge as well. I guess I want to see if I like that longer distance or not. If I do, maybe I will do more of them. If I don’t, I’m not being part of that. I just have to try one.

AS. Good luck and thanks for the chat. I am looking forward to seeing how you get on next week in your first Hundred. You have done pretty well at every distance so far.

Jarlath. Cheers Adrian. Good to chat.

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