When Kaden Nilson was running track and cross country for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, he was completely dialled in. He was dedicated to his training and avoided activities that weren’t written on his training plan, worried they might cause injury or affect his ability to complete a workout as prescribed.
So when Nilson completed his final year of eligibility with the Huskies in 2023, a world of possibilities opened before him. In the last 18 months, he’s joined a recreational flag football team, taken up rock climbing, tackled an ultra marathon, lined up for his first marathon and raced a road mile — all while in law school.
“When you’re training for university sports, it’s a lot of fun, but it’s very regimented,” says Nilson, now 24. “You don’t get to try as many other athletic-related endeavours because you’re trying not to get hurt. There were things I’d always wanted to do and now was the time. I’m still in reasonable shape and don’t have to worry about whether I get injured or not.”
Fortunately, Nilson has managed to avoid injury so far and is seeing success on the roads and trails. He was third in the 2023 Saskatchewan Marathon 10km in a blistering 33 minutes, 57 seconds; raced to second in the Saskatchewan Marathon earlier this year in an evenly paced 2 hours, 34 minutes; and recently won the Whiteswan Mile in 4 minutes 17 seconds.
One might imagine it would be challenging to balance training and recreational sports with law school, but Nilson says the activities complement each other. “You can’t effectively study for 16 hours a day, so being able to get a break and go outside is something I found to be beneficial,” he says. “Oddly enough, my first semester when I wasn’t a Huskie athlete was when my worst performance academically was, so I think there’s something to be said for having a bit of a routine. You’re doing more activity, but you’re also maybe staying away from other kinds of activities that might hurt a guy academically.”
Nilson grew up in Choiceland, about 100 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert, and discovered running in elementary school through the cross country team, which he says was a fun way to skip class and hang out with friends. He was also really good at it. By Grade 7, Nilson started working with a track coach in Prince Albert and he joined the University of Saskatchewan Huskies when he moved to Saskatoon in 2017 to start his undergraduate degree in kinesiology (he later transferred into business).
“Moving to a new center can be challenging, but I think it makes it a lot easier when you’re in a university sport and you have that kind of community around you to support you, and a good base friend group,” Nilson recalls. “It was a pretty seamless transition, having a community already there.”
Nilson competed with the Huskies for three years before the COVID-19 pandemic forced a suspension of university sports and completed his final two years of USPORTS eligibility starting in the 2021-22 academic year. Nilson was part of the 4x800m relay teams that won CanWest silver in both 2022 and 2023, but the highlight of his collegiate running career came three years earlier when he was part of the men’s team that won the 2019 Canada West Championships (the U of S women’s team also won that year). Nilson ran the 600m and was part of the 4x400m and 4x800m relay teams. “That was a pretty big moment, especially early on in my career. We were pretty big underdogs at CanWest and we ended up having a couple of big days,” Nilson says.
After wrapping up his last USPORTS indoor track season in early 2023, Nilson hopped into the Saskatchewan Marathon 10km. Then, he turned his attention to the Beaver Flat 50 ultra marathon to give himself a new challenge. He built his own training plan, which revolved around running five days a week and doing long runs with lots of hills. Beaver Flat is a notoriously difficult course and Nilson said things got “scary” in the last kilometres of the race when he became dehydrated in the hot conditions. “It was a tough race,” he says. “It was definitely a bit of an accomplishment to finish. You’re going through a lot of different things out there. You don’t have as high intensity of pain as you would racing a 10k, but your body breaks down over that distance. I definitely wasn’t as prepared as I wanted for the hills and the downhills.” He still finished ninth in a time of 6 hours, five minutes.
Nilson kept running after Beaver Flat and was in pretty good shape in February when he saw on social media that people who entered the Saskatchewan Marathon that month would be entered into a draw to win a pair of shoes. “I had about 12 weeks until the marathon and I knew that, being in school, I would have time to train. I thought that if I ended up not entering and then didn’t have an opportunity later in my life, I’d probably regret it. So I figured: Let’s enter this and see how it goes.” (He did not win the shoes).
As with Beaver Flat, Nilson created his own training plan and consulted Huskies track coach Jamie Epp and Saskatchewan Marathon record holder Jason Warick. His experience training on the track helped him understand how to manage his body and allowed him to feel confident about prioritizing rest and recovery. Overtraining, Nilson knows, is more likely to lead to injury and disappointment than undertraining.
While Nilson’s training went well, he struggled with hamstring cramping leading into the race and his goal was to run as quickly as he could without aggravating the muscle. He settled into a comfortable pace, fighting his instincts to close the early gaps between him and other runners on the course, many of whom were running the half marathon. He moved from third place to second around the 35-kilometre mark and held the position to the finish.
The experience left Nilson hungry for more — how fast could he have run if he hadn’t been worried about his hamstring? — and he’s signed up for the Edmonton Marathon at the end of August. He’s also contemplating jumping into the Budapest Half Marathon in September because he will be in Hungary beginning a semester of studying abroad. While he would like to better his time in the marathon, he’s not losing sight of why he’s racing.
“Running now, it’s definitely a lot less stress because you’re only representing yourself, as opposed to representing a team. It’s all for fun at this point. In the marathon, if I don’t have a good day, I’m the only one that would be affected by it,” he says.
“I’m just doing it because I want to be doing it and want to enjoy it — and I have been enjoying it. So I’ll just go out there and see what happens.”
