Martin Rea continued an excellent year for Ireland's ultramarathon athletes when he won the Mt. Everest Challenge Marathon and Himalayan 100-mile stage race last week. The Mt. Everest Challenge Marathon takes place on the third day of the six-stage race. Run at an average altitude of 10,000 feet, with spectacular views of Mt. Everest, Kachenjunga, Lhotse and Makalu (four out of the five highest peaks in the world), Rea finished in joint first with Spanish marathoner Javier Gomez. It's the fourth occasion in the sixteen editions of the race that an Irishman has won, with Rea joining Noel Hanna, Michael Collins and Richard Donovan as previous Irish victors. Only two weeks before the Himalayan race, another Irish ultra marathoner, Eoin Keith, clocked up 136 miles to finish third in a 24-hour track race in London. The distance only narrowly missed Tony Mangan's recent Irish track record when the latter finished 9th at September's European Championships in Italy. Rea will now join Thomas Maguire to spearhead Ireland's challenge for Anglo-Celtic Plate 100k team honours in April 2007. Maguire finished a magnificent 12th at the World 100k Championships in Korea last month in a new Irish record of 7.05. The Plate, a team competition between Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, will also be utilised to pick the Irish 100k team for the European and World 100k Championships in September 2007. Also on the Irish team for the Plate will be Michael Collins, who beat former world marathon champion Abel Anton, among other high profile names, to win the Sahara half-marathon in Algeria this year. Collins also went on to win the North Pole Marathon and represent Ireland at the European 100k championships before injury ruled him out of the World 100k. Prior to the 2007 World 100k Championships, Eoin Keith will join Tony Mangan, Richard Donovan and Noel Hanna to contest the World 24 Hour Championships in Canada in July. Mangan finished a breakthrough 16th at this year's World Championships in Taiwan recording a new Irish road record of 142 miles approximately. Donovan, the Irish 100-mile record holder, has recently been unfortunate with injuries and also suffered temporary kidney failure in an adventure race through the Amazon Jungle last month. However, he will take part in a 100k race in the interior of the Antarctic in December, hoping to salvage the year and beat his own Antarctic record for the distance. Hanna, a world class adventure racer, summited Everest in May and could well be the strongest of a very strong 24-hour team.