I ran my first ultra in 2021, at the Quicksilver 50k. In training for that race, I was debating whether or not I should run the 100k. After a hellish training session on Dog Meat and Kennedy in September of that year, I decided to stick with the 50k. Yesterday I finally finished the 100k in 13:36. A result I’m proud of, but a race that is leaving me disappointed in the process of getting there. Let me walk you through it.

Training

Training went very well. No illnesses and barely any missed training sessions until 2 weeks before the race. I averaged about 50 miles a week since January, and added another 2 to 4 hours of biking on average per week. I did strength training once or twice a week, and did a good block of heat training leading up to the race. I ran a few training races: a 25k, 30k, 35k and a 50k. I did two big sessions of 5 dog meat – the steepest climb of the course - repeats.

I messed up my left hip in that last session with dog meat repeats. I took 5 days completely off running with 1 bike session mixed in, and managed to get back to running shorter distances with limited intensity. The day before the race I did a 30 minute shakeout with 4x30seconds hill strides, and felt like the hip was OK and would be able to manage.

The plan

I have not nailed a 100k yet. I ran Canyons 100k twice, and twice felt like I left something out there. This made me revisit my typical race plan, and I adjusted it accordingly. I had also learnt in my last 50k that being a bit more conservative makes for a great finish. My race plan for Quicksilver 100k was:

1. HR cap @ 154bpm for the first 50 miles.
2. Use downhills to recover, don’t slam.
3. Arrive at Hacienda with a fucking smile on my freaking face because I’m having a blast.

Course Description

Quicksilver 100k is in south San Jose, and these are my local trails. I know this network really well and in training I covered 61 of the 62 race miles, often on race-specific long runs.

It’s about 13,000 feet of climbing, and a lot of that climbing is heavily frontloaded. The first half asks for patience before things open up later in the day.

Race morning

Alarm went off at 2AM. I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry, and started my first bagel with peanut butter and banana. It went down easily enough, and I threw a second one in the furnace. That’s my typical pre-race breakfast anyway. We left the house by 3AM to get to the start line by 3:45AM.

I saw our friends at the start line, and was feeling excited about the race. 5 minutes before the start I took my first gel of the day, and my stomach immediately let me know something wasn’t right. And then at 4:30, it was time to turn on the headlamp at full blast and start climbing.

Start to Lexington

The first 18 miles of Quicksilver went great for me. The first 12-13 miles are either going uphill or flowy trail, before descending towards Lexington reservoir.

I started conservatively, hiking most of the uphills and occasionally jogging the lighter grades. At the first aid station (Hicks) I took a little restroom break. It was nice seeing the sun come up. I was eating on a metronome, every 40 minutes I either took a gel or chews. One thing I noticed is that I wasn’t very thirsty. It was still chilly, and given the conservative pace I wasn’t sweating a ton. My focus was to empty my flask of Skratch before each aid station, to ensure I got 500ml and my carbs in.

The descent towards Lexington was the first test for my hip. My hip could deal with climbing well, it’s the braking forces of a descent that made it worse. I ran the descent to Lexington slower than I typically would to protect the hip, save the quads and to stick to my race plan. During the descent I spoke to a few people, Barbara from SoCal, Zoe, who I learnt after ran the Woodside Crossover where I volunteered, and one guy (don’t remember his name) who is going to Western States in June!

All throughout this section I was thinking “arrive at Hacienda with a smile”. That was the goal for the first 40 miles. If I saw an incline where I wasn’t sure if I should run or hike, I thought “what will make me arrive at Hacienda with a smile”, and hiked it.

I made good time to Lexington. While I didn’t have a time goal, I did have splits prepared for Kelly to know when and where to crew me. I was in between 13 and 14 hour pace for this crew stop.

At the aid station, Kelly was ready for a speedy transition. Vest swap, sunscreen, ice bandana and off I went towards Kennedy.

Lexington to Kennedy

In my mind, this was supposed to be the hardest section of the race. And I felt good throughout this entire segment. I was still being conservative, listening to my heart rate alarm. Looking back at it now, maybe I should have played it even more conservative, because I let my heart rate hover around the ‘alarm zone’ of 154 on the climb. But, I am proud to say that I resisted the urge to turn off the alarm on the climb (yes, I was thinking about it), I backed off every time the alarm went off, and I stuck the plan.

On the climb, I suddenly felt hungry. I texted Kelly to have a clif bar ready at the aid station so I could get some real food in my stomach. I was still eating my gels and my chews every 40 minutes, but that doesn’t really fill a stomach.

Once I reached the top, it was time for a 4 mile descent. I took it easier than normal again, but still my hip was starting to feel unhappy. It wasn’t very painful, but it was certainly a noticeable sensation, and I’d be happy to turn around and hike up again once I cleared the aid station.

I made it to the Kennedy aid station in a perfect time of 5 hours after the start. That put me 10 minutes behind 13:00 pace, which I didn’t know at the time. I got my clif bar, fresh ice bandana, vest swap and more sunscreen. Kelly was very well prepared and made for a perfect transition.

Even better than the aid station transition was seeing my friends Jen and Alex show up! Phil, a friend whose wife was also running the 100k, was there as well and was cheering me on! Great to have people you know at aid stations, even if you only see them for 1 minute.

Kennedy to Hacienda

All that energy was amazing. I took that energy, turned it into a smile and started the longest climb of the day back to Woods. Less steep than Dog Meat, but longer and later in the day, which meant warmer.

It here that my low point started. It was so weird, it happened all of a sudden. I went from feeling great to feeling like shit in 1 second. I was staying cool, I was eating and drinking, but still it fell over me. I didn’t stop climbing, I kept moving, but it was a huge surprise. It’s difficult to describe what happened during this low point. I felt weak, like I couldn’t climb as hard or fast as I wanted, and I was feeling increasingly nauseous.

I didn’t panic during this time. Low points happen, they have happened at all my longer-than-50k runs. At Javelina 2025, it took 5 miles to get back on top. And today, my goal was to arrive at Hacienda with a smile, and I was working on getting there.

To stay on top of my hydration, I also peed somewhere on the climb. It’s a great way to get a couple second break, plus checking on urine color is one way to judge hydration station. Everything looked normal and as expected, and I guessed I wasn’t under of over hydrated.

Made it to the top of the Woods climb, got fresh liquids at the aid station, got wet (no ice in this aid station), and started the descent towards Hicks aid station. That descent was uneventful, I was keeping a decent controlled pace, given it wasn’t too steep of a descent my hip was feeling better than the Kennedy descent, and when we hit the flowy trail section (about 2-3 miles) I could run most of it.

Fresh ice and liquids at Hicks, and only a short run now towards Hacienda. While I was still running and moving, I was still feeling incredibly low. My legs were starting to hurt, and running was getting more difficult.

The final descent towards hacienda is pretty rocky. I wouldn’t call it technical, but you have to watch your footing and you have to be careful on where you place your feet. It hurt, but I ran down that entire thing, with the right songs playing at the right time.

And I made it to Hacienda with a fake smile on my face. The music had pepped me up, and I was so happy to see Kelly, my friends, my pacers and to know that I only had 22 miles left.

Hacienda to McAbee

Jen was my first pacer. She’s an incredible runner. She recently finished the Gorge 100k, and has experience from multiple 100 milers. I have paced her once before at the Rio Del Lago 100 miler, and now she was “repaying” the favor.

There is a love-hate relationship with pacers. I don’t know if it’s just me, but before the race I told both my pacers to force me to run. They are there to help you get the most of yourself. And both of them did this, much to my chagrin.

Jen called it “a shuffle”. The goal was to run as much of the trails we could run. It was a slow run, but we did it. She reminded me very often by telling me: “Come on, Nills, shuffle!”.

At one point, when I looked at my feet, I saw something white stick to the side of my sock. At first, I thought it was a feminine hygiene pad. DIGUSTING! But it was something less disgusting, but much worse: the insole of my shoe! How the hell does the insole of a shoe pop out? But, the trail gods were very kind of me. Just as I saw this weird thing stick to my sock, we came across a bench. I sat down and with the help of Jen took off my shoe, she reinserted to sole and I managed to tie my own shoes again. Thank you Jen!

After the Mockingbird aid station, I couldn’t stomach my gels anymore. I was incredibly nauseous, and if I ate one I think I might have vomited. However, they had Skratch chews at the aid station, and I took a package to see if I could use those as a backup fuel source. It worked. I ate those packets from Mockingbird to the finish.

After Mockingbird we had a climb to the Bull Run aid station. What a gorgeous climb. We got passed by 2 runners, but were still making good progress. At Bull Run, I had negotiated with Jen to let me sit down for a bit. While Jen and the volunteers took care of everything I wanted and needed, I sat down for a full 3 minutes. GLORIOUS.

I left Bull Run with a fresh ice bandana, a cup of Sprite, fresh liquids and 2 packets of chews. Soon enough, Jen forced me to run again. There’s a fairly long descent from Bull Run to the New Almaden trail, and while it hurt, I managed to run it.

And on New Almaden trail, I finally escaped my low point. I don’t know what helped me get out of it, I honestly don’t. It might have been the sprite, it might have been the long descent that allowed me to recover a bit, or it might have been the runner behind me who said “you’re doing a good pace, I don’t want to pass you.”.

Whatever it was, I ran all but 1 climb of the New Almaden trail. Even steep climbs I managed to run (the climbs on New Almaden trail are short!). While I wasn’t setting any PRs, it felt great to be able to run again.

Made it to the McAbee aid station, where I sat down with a cup of sprite again. Kelly and the volunteers helped me with everything I needed before I set off with my new pacer: Lauren.

McAbee to finish

Lauren is a friend and a colleague. While she hasn’t done an ultra herself yet, she is an amazing runner. The first trail race she ever ran, she showed up and won the race! She was very happy and energetic during her pacing duties, and while I couldn’t react as energetically to her, her energy got me through some new low points.

Running all of New Almaden trail was nice, but on the section from McAbee to Bull Run I found it difficult to run again. Lauren tried to get me to run as much as possible, and I tried to listen to her. The climb to Bull Run is not that steep, but it is long. And it felt really long today. On the way there, Lauren and I passed one other runner and her pacer.

I was still eating my chews on the way up, and had one of my gels as well.

On the climb to Bull Run we also saw my friend Kathy and her pacer Felicia. It was great to see Kathy still doing well here! She ended up finishing just behind the official cut off time, but she still ran all of the 100k!

At Bull Run, I got wet, took one bottle of Skratch and got out of there. And the goal now was to run every. Single. Step. And we did. It was like the finish line was a magnet. I remembered my low point from Canyons 100k last year, where even on the descent to the finish I could barely lift my legs. And today I could run down. Lauren was cheering me on, and I wanted to keep going. It hurt, but we were running. And the closer we got to the finish, the faster we were going. With about one mile to go, I told Lauren I was going to turn on some music (on my headphones) to get hyped up. And the music hit, exactly right.

I ran faster and faster, and accidentally dropped Lauren in the final mile. Strava says my final mile was a 6:57, my final km was a 3:57.

I crossed the finish line in 13:35:59.

Why I still feel disappointed

First things first: I am incredibly happy and proud of my result. I went into this race not in 100% shape, my hip held up, and my 13:35:59 is a great 100k time. 2.5 hours faster than Canyons last year, and less than half the stoppage time. Even though I sat down twice and lost some time waiting on a porta-potty, that’s a huge accomplishment.

Then, why do I feel disappointed? It has to do with the process of how I got there. When I hit that low point, I didn’t troubleshoot enough. I took it at face value, and did not force myself out of it. While I was troubleshooting problems as they came up, like switching to the chews for nutrition and getting some sprite for calories and settling the stomach; I wasn’t actively engaged from mile 28 to 50 to fix it. I went through the motions, one step at a time, and wasn’t working on making myself better.

I didn’t mention this in the race report, but I think I might have been overheated a bit. My bucket hat felt warm at points, and I took it off during some segments. Arm sleeves are great when there’s melting ice in there. Yesterday, I forgot at some points to put ice in there, and instead of cooling me down, they acted like a little oven for my arms. Even though I was wearing an ice from the first crewable aid station to the finish, my arms and my head might have been causing more heat to build up than my ice bandana could cool.

One thing I am proud of is that I kept eating throughout the race. I did some math based on my trash and my memory, and I had ~70-75g/hour throughout the race. Some of that is front-loaded, I had mostly 40 gram gels at the beginning, before switching to the 25 gram chews at Mockingbird. While 80-90 would have been better, 70 still is a great number for such a long race.

It’s a huge thanks to my pacers for getting me to the finish line in this fast of a time. Without them, I know I would have still finished, but I likely would have run way less after Hacienda. I am so grateful to have had Jen and Lauren be the voice of reason and forcing me to run and shuffle, even though I didn’t like it one bit while they were doing it to me.

Every long ultra is an opportunity to learn lessons. I feel like I have the 50k figured out. A 50k is still a long race, but it allows you to mess up and not have mistakes catch up to you. Once you go beyond the 50k, it’s a different game. Early mistakes catch up to you. Pacing mistakes, upset stomachs all come back to you.

I proved to myself that I can handle these long ultras at Javelina in 2025. While I had my low points there as well, I managed to overcome them quickly and surprised myself with my result. At quicksilver, I didn’t fix my low points, and it’s disappointing.

Looking forward

I’m looking forward to a rest week. No training, just eating a lot and letting my body recover. Currently, I have no “longer” ultras on the schedule. The longest race I currently have planned is the Napa Lapa 12 hours. I’m looking at potentially tackling a harder 50 miler in the fall, trying to upgrade to harder terrain; but after this 100k finish, I’m also considering mixing that up and going for another 100k to see if I can get myself to have a good one for once. If you have any ideas, let me know!