A 13-year-old Berkeley middle-schooler just completed an ultramarathon on Mount Diablo

Jacob Segrè, an 8th grader at Willard cross country runner, runs through his favorite sections of the Clark Kerr Fire Trail on March 30, 2025. Segrè, 13, completed the Mt. Diablo ultramarathon last weekend. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

On the trails of the East Bay hills and beyond, Willard Middle School 8th-grader Jacob Segrè has run above the fog line at 6 a.m., seen cows give birth, and been asked by adults: Where’s your mom?

Segrè joined his school’s cross-country team as a 7th-grader and immediately displayed innate talent, according to Danielle Perez, his head coach at Willard. But, she added, he still needed some refinement. 

Roughly a year later, Segrè has achieved that and a lot more. This past Saturday, the 13-year-old finished a 31-mile ultramarathon (50 kilometers) in 6 hours and 52 minutes, becoming one of the youngest Bay Area runners to complete the long-distance competition.

Hosted by Brazen Racing, the 50K run began in Castle Rock Park in Walnut Creek and ended at the summit of Mount Diablo. More than 100 people finished the race, which started at 6:30 a.m. and had an 11-hour time limit. 

Segrè ran about 50 miles a week over several weeks to train for the long-distance course — the longest he’s ever run. 

He said he enjoys seeing the sights while running, along with its meditative effects. “I will take any excuse to get into the hills and onto the trails,” he said. 

Segrè’s passions and talents are completely self-discovered, according to his father, Gino Segrè. “I did not introduce distance running to Jacob,” he said. “That’s 100% sure.”

“I cannot imagine running for that long,” Segrè’s mother, Kate Gordon, said about her son running double-digit miles. “The idea of running for more than an hour seems crazy. He’s very disciplined.”

“I train everywhere except on the track,” said Segrè, who likes running in the hills for the view and the wildflowers. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

But the family did have some influence; Gordon said they all began hiking outdoors more during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Everybody needed to get out of the house at various points to get away from everybody,” she said. “It was a good opportunity to get up in the hills.” 

Segrè began going on short hikes in Claremont Canyon. Then the hikes became longer. 

He became even more motivated after his older sister Julia Segrè, Berkeley’s first youth poet laureate and an ultimate frisbee player, encouraged him to make a New Year’s resolution to complete a 10K run, which he did. Gordon made the same resolution but wound up completing a 5K race instead. “He has surpassed me from the very beginning,” she said.

Segrè joined the Willard cross-country team, which is co-ed and has over 60 members across all of the school’s three grade levels, through Berkeley Unified’s after-school program. The fall sport focuses on distance running over various terrains. 

Because the school does not have a track, the team relies on coaches and parent volunteers to take the kids around town to run, Perez said. She began coaching the team as a volunteer in 2021, after schools reopened during the pandemic. The team started with just over 30 students, doubling its runners within four years.

Cross country is a new sport for a majority of middle schoolers and Segrè was no different in that regard, said Perez — he wasn’t blowing everybody out of the water when he joined the team. 

“He clearly had natural talents, but I don’t think he had done much running before he came out to run with the team,” she said. “It was really fun to watch him progress through his first season, where he slowly got more comfortable.”

Annika Halverson, also a cross-country coach and an 8th-grade English teacher at Willard, was new to the team as well when she met Segrè.

“I was pretty blown away by his level of maturity, the thoughtfulness in his questions, how he listened really well to his teammates and built a really positive team culture,” she said.

Perez said Segrè took off after his first season, exploring the sport on his own since middle school cross-country running maxes out at about two miles. Segrè soon began participating in longer races: 10Ks and half marathons, and eventually last weekend’s ultramarathon. 

“I could tell that the intellectual side of the training was really speaking to him,” said Perez. “He’s a very analytical kid, and he was all in on that cerebral part of training. He had never talked to me so much as when he started training for the longer races.”

Gino Segrè remembers when he and his wife tried to time one of Segrè’s races — a half marathon in San Ramon last September — so that they could intercept him halfway. They started from the end and hiked backward to the beginning. Along the way, Gino Segrè and Gordon became exhausted from the descent and thought their son might not finish the race. When they found him on the trail, he was all smiles as he tackled the 1,000-foot climb before finishing the race one second under 3 hours. He finished first in his age group, ahead of a 15-year-old runner.

In the days before longer races, Segrè prepares his clothing and gear. For the 50K, he carried two water bottles, a carbohydrate and electrolyte mix, and running gels, which he referred to as “hyper-optimized goo” that give runners much-needed energy midway through a race. The night before, he enjoys loads of pasta for the same reasons. 

Gordon said they checked in with doctors to ensure the extra calories and heavy exertion wouldn’t negatively impact their son’s growth and development.

“It’s been a steady progression, and we’ve felt comfortable every step along the way with his ability to self-regulate,” Gino Segrè said. 

Segrè said he will sometimes feel heightened emotions like euphoria following long-distance competitions and even sadness, also known as the “post-race blues.”

Jacob and his dad, Gino Segrè, photographed in the Clark Kerr Fire trail a week before the Mt. Diablo ultramarathon. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local“I like [the pace of] long runs because I can talk to people; it’s hard to chat when you sprint,” Segrè said. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

“The emotion can be totally not logical,” Segrè said. “At the end of those runs, I might just sit down and not be able to think for like 10 minutes. It’s really different from anything I’ve felt.” 

Around 4 to 6 hours later, he will start feeling soreness in his joints. Sometimes, he won’t want to walk, and will need to hold onto the stair banister at home “to make sure my knees don’t go crazy.”

A long race is followed by many days of rest to ensure that he did not injure himself. Gordon said her son doesn’t nap much, but in the aftermath of a race “he will usually crash.”

“I really try to be conservative with it, and that’s a sentiment my coaches also have,” Segrè said. “My body is still not fully mature, and there’s a lot of things that the pros can do that I just can’t.” 

Segrè is a careful and technical runner who listens to various running podcasts and participates in online communities related to the sport, according to his dad. 

Though he never misses cross-country practice with his Willard Middle School team, there aren’t many kids his age running these long distances. Segrè has met people up to nearly the age of 70 during his races, and they’re typically surprised to see someone as young as him on the trail. But he said there is also a shared experience among runners, despite age differences.

Segrè’s dad agrees, saying that he enjoys running with his son and it has improved his health. Segrè even set a goal for his father to run 365 miles this year. “We’ll see if he can help me train to do that,” he said.