Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Looming Quicksilver 100k

Quicksilver 100k is scheduled to start on May 14th, 4:30am.  Another 3 days away and I am more anxious for this yearly ritual of heading to Quicksilver county park on 2nd Saturday of may every year.

This will be my 8th QS since 1st one in 2005, when I finished 50k with Rajeev. Since then I have tried to include this bay area classic ultra every year except for few misses due to other life events.



                                               Quicksilver 100k Course Profile.

Quicksilver running club has been organizing this race I believe since 1984, prior to 2014 it had 3 races: 25k,50k and 50m held on same day and lot of the course overlapped. But in 2014 QRC decided to add 100k eliminating 50m (which was a classic 50m by itself). This course was beautifully designed going all the way up to Los Gatos and back and running another 20 miles in the park. I started running 100k since 2014 and plan to tow the line as long as I can. This course stitched together Sierra Azul OSP and Quicksilver County Park, soon Mt Ummnum will be open and I can see that being part of the Race, adding another 1K ft.


                                         Quicksilver 100k Course Map

Last year I was unable to get sufficient training and did pay a big price during the race and just barely managed to finish in 16:22, I vowed that day to be better prepared for 2016 and was eagerly waiting for registration in Dec 2015. Luckily got in few minutes, race filled up in few hours.

Life has been kind, Thanks to R and A I was able to log good training since middle of Feb, until now I got some real quality training with lots of elevation gain. Marin 50m and Quad Mission Peak runs were very good confidence boosters. I have set a goal of running under 14hrs, anything around that will be satisfying as well.

Brief History of my runs at QS 100k:
2005: 50k, 7:05  (ran with Rajeev, chatting with lot of ultra veterans)
2006: 50m, 12:10 (barely made 40 mile cutoff by 2 mins, running alongside wini jebian)
2007: 50k,  6:05 (fast 50k, best race day)
2008: out of country
2009: Volunteer (ran miwok and volunteered with Stevenscreek Striders @ Dam Overlook)
2010: 50m, 10:50  (ran with Sandy Baker, hot day)
2011: 50k, 6:04  (and Napa relay with Akamai at night)
2012: Volunteer (Sweep for 50M section)
2013: DNS
2014: 100k sub 15hr
2015: 100k hard and humble finish 16:22
2016:??

All these years Chihping Fu has been a regular feature, we end up running around each other for quite a few miles, I enjoy his company and attitude.

I want to keep running this race as long as I can. Anxiously waiting for the big day..



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