Sleeping Giant Marathon
Sleeping Giant is a Connecticut State Park approximately 10 minutes from my parents’ house. It’s where we went for family hikes as kids, and for the occasional weekend cross-country practice in high school. I had attempted to do some trail runs there while visiting my family in the past and struggled with the relatively rocky trails. However, since I was now back for multiple months building my second van I decided that was probably a skill issue on my end and gave it another shot. My main complaint about Sleeping Giant is its relatively small size, and I offhandedly remarked that I could probably do every trail in the park in a single day…
Of course that’s a thing - there’s even an FKT.
Training and Planning
To register for the “Marathon Giant Master” the SGPA requires you to first complete the basic Giant Master Program - of course you can simply go run all the trails, but I figured I might as well get the certificate or whatever. I completed the Giant Master over a few weeks, just replacing the road runs I had been doing with trail runs.
I think the SGPA is absolutely on the right path here - the trails in Sleeping Giant greatly vary in their “runnability”, and two involve short scrambles. Most trails are also (in my opinion) slightly under-blazed, meaning some familiarity is beneficial rather than trying to figure out navigation most of the way through a 30-mile day.
Route selection
Sleeping Giant’s trail system is broken down into two major parts: The red trails (Diamond, Octagon, Triangle, Circle, Square) traverse the park from North to South and can be easily connected into a snake via perimeter roads; The other colors run from East to West and generally start at the main parking lot and end at Chestnut Lane. This would make for a fairly intuitive route - the Red Snake and some rainbow loops - were it not for:
- Blue-White, Blue-Violet, and two Yellow-Green connector trails running between the main trails
- The Tower Road, a wide gravel road running up to the tower on the park’s peak
- The Nature Trail, which shares some segments with other trails, but also has some of its own segments.
- The Blue Trail, which starts at gap into the woods off of a random road a mile East of the other trails
Additionally, the Blue and White trails are the most difficult (technical and with the most elevation) trails, so I wanted to get them done earlier in the day
Ultimately I got lazy here and just cribbed the route from the Men’s Unsupported FKT. The women’s route was the most intuitive to me, but had some additional backtracking around the Nature Trail and had the White Trail later in the day; and I had a hard time figuring out what was going on in the self-supported route. I’d recommend looking at the turn-by-turn directions in the images here (Women’s FKT) as a starting point if you want to do this yourself for some reason.
I think there’s definitely further room for optimization here - still a decent bit of backtracking and road-running. At the same time, there is something aesthetically pleasing (and easier on the brain) about running most or all of the trails end-to-end vs. an “optimal” route that requires careful memorization of various intersections.
The Run
This was to be my first run at the distance, so I decided to park my car in the main lot with extra snacks and water in case I needed to resupply (or bail). After waiting at the gate for the park to open, I left the car and biked to the start of the blue trail.
After that there’s not too much interesting to say - the whole run is in the trees and although the total vert is decent there are no individual major climbs.
The Blue Trail is the longest and one of the most technical trails in the park. I also included some connectors here as out-and-backs.
I came upon some hikers that were sitting down taking a break halfway up this rock face, and stumbled just enough to scare one of them into thinking I was about to fall on them. I told them I would make sure not to fall until I was past.
I felt great coming off the Blue Trail, and ran back along the road to start the first half of the Red Snake.
At this point the route I was following does some tomfoolery to accomodate the nature trail. This was probably the route-finding crux, but I still felt fresh, especially as part of the Red Octagon shares the tower road making for a nice downhill cruise.
Yellow to Tower Road to Nature Trail to Octagon to Tower Road… Phew! Time to start the Rainbow.
It was at this point that I 1. ran out of water and B. started to feel the effects of my too-fast starting pace. While the Orange trail isn’t terrible in terms of elevation, it certainly had me dreading my return on White.
The White Trail was definitely the crux of my day, and I’m glad I did it in the first half. After finally slogging through, I stopped at the park faucet to refill my water. I drank probably close to half a liter, and dumped another half liter on my head which helped more than I expected. This refill lined up nicely halfway through the mileage, and with more than half the vert complete and the two most technical trails under my belt I felt fairly confident that the hardest part was over.
Purple and Yellow each contain one steep section, but are otherwise relatively flat with good tread.
From Yellow I reconnected with the Red Triangle and proceeded into the second half of the Snake.
The stream at the North end of the Red Circle trail was fortunately flowing enough to filter water from. I drank another quarter Liter and refilled my two empty flasks back to full. Now I was confident I had enough water to finish strong. I’m sure the hiker that passed me thought I was crazy filtering water from a stream 20 feet from the parking lot though.
I also saw campers at the park for the first time in my life! I didn’t realize you could even camp here, but it turns out there are designated youth group camping areas.
Having finished the Red Snake and with only the Green Trail to round out the Rainbow I was a little concerned that my watch was only at 24 miles - would I even hit the 30 I thought I’d get?
It turns out the yellow-green connectors are… Longer than I thought
And just like that I was back at the tower 24 miles after the first time past it, and with one mile left on the day overall.
Climbing the tower is not required by the SGPA, and none of the routes I looked at included it; but I hadn’t been up in years and had skipped it on all of my training runs. I knew I’d cruise down the tower road and decided I could probably make it up and still keep the whole thing under eight hours.
I flew down the wide, gentle gravel road for an 8:37 last full mile, a nice reprieve after all the trails.
Unfortunately, I still had a tiny segment of the Nature Trail left to cover! The true finish was at a random intersection back in the woods, leaving me tripping over rocks worrying I’d go over my (arbitrary) goal of eight hours and hoping I didn’t miss the turn. I turned out that tiny segment was almost another half mile, but I made it to the end for a total time of 7:53:18.
Now to walk out of the woods, go pick up my bike (it was still there undisturbed) and head back to my parents’ for a hot tub and a steak dinner 😍
Analysis
Overall I’m quite pleased with this effort. The two big takeaways are to pace myself better at the start and ensure adequate water capacity:
Running
Pros:
- Finished the thing
- Legs felt pretty good
- Enough energy left at the end to climb the tower and cruise down the road for an 8:37 mile.
Cons:
- Definitely went out too fast - I was only 10 minutes behind the FKT at mile 7 (I initially toyed with choosing between two different routes based off my time at this spot, I have not compared any of my other splits). I didn’t wear a chest HRM, and brushed off my watch’s 171 HR in Mile 1 as simply inaccurate - while it probably was inaccurate, it nevertheless should have warned me that I was overdoing it. This, combined with nutrition/hydration issues made the end of the first half quite the struggle before I managed to recover a bit
- I probably could have gone faster overall? I expected to feel a lot more drained after this effort, and have felt worse after shorter (albeit higher-elevation-gain) things in the past; which makes me think I wasn’t pushing quite hard enough. Not sure if that’s mental or physical, I certainly have been focusing far more on endurance in my training than any sort of speed/intensity work
- While I think I chose a fairly efficient route overall, and am glad I picked the one with the White Trail earlier than the others, my chosen route…
- Did not account for water refills. I only passed the Spigot once, and while I hit the main parking lot a second time, it was even earlier in the run and on the other side of the lot from the spigot.
- Finished at a random intersection in the trees, leaving me with a chaotic last half mile and a mandatory walk out, rather than a celebratory finish straight down the tower road.
Nutrition/Hydration
I had my semi-usual breakfast (Greek Yogurt, Oats, Granola, Blueberries) ~1hour before starting.
During the run I ate:
| Item | Calories | Carbs |
|---|---|---|
| 215 g Nerds Gummy Clusters | 716 cal | 179 g |
| 4 Nature’s Bakery bars | 800 cal | 152 g |
| 2 Hammer gels | 180 cal | 44 g |
That brings me to about 200cal (47g carbs) per hour, which is lower than seems to be recommended. The Gummy Clusters were excellent. I had trouble getting the third and fourth bars down, especially while low on water, and wish I had packed more gels to replace them with. For future runs I will likely pack more Nerds (I finished everything I brought and could have had more), more Gels (so I can hit at least 60g carbs/hour), and fewer bars. I do like the bars where possible since they’re relatively cheap and incorporate a few more nutrients than the pure sugar. My main opposition to gels is the amount of waste and the cost, I plan on experimenting with making my own via this recipe from a friend of a friend.
I also had
- ~4.5L Water - I don’t have a super accurate measure here due to drinking extra when I filled
- 11 SaltStick Electrolyte Capsules (1 every 45 minutes, and 1 extra around halfway)
- 25mg Caffeine - one of the two Hammer Gels. I don’t drink coffee or tea, so my caffeine tolerance/threshold is likely lower than average.
I did not drink enough water in the first half of the run. Sleeping Giant only has one spigot, and I neglected to account for refills in my route planning, meaning I was carrying only 1.5L of capacity and only had one opportunity to refill. Fortunately I found enough water in an often-dry stream at the other end of the park to refill once more in the second half, I think without this I would have had a far worse time. I think my dehydration towards the end of the first half made me significantly slower, and made it a lot harder to keep eating the bars.
Because I was dehydrated prior to my refill, I then chugged water at the refill station which led to slight stomach pain and slowness for the next few miles before I recovered. I plan on doing some sweat rate testing (just weighing myself before and after runs) to get a better idea of how much water I need, but it’s probably more than the ~560mL/hour I consumed.
Gear
Pretty much everything was good here:
- Shoes: Hoka Speedgoat 5 Wide - been using this model for almost two years now, I get the slightest blister on my right pinky toe but everything else is great
- Shorts: lululemon Pace Breaker 5” unlined - newest piece of gear for me and I love them - short, light, with hand pockets for my phone/wallet/keys before and after the run and a zipper pocket that can hold my phone on shorter runs. For this run I used the zipper pocket to stash my empty soft flask once swapping to the third flask
- Underwear: Underarmour BoxerJock - Not quite compression shorts, but close enough to prevent chafing - I use the “charged cotton” version of these for the everday and the synthetic for long runs and the cut works for me
- Sun Hoodie: Outdoor Research Echo: Light, comfy, with thumb loops. This is the lightest sun hoodie from the major brands as far as I know and I’ve used it for a few years. I will say my Black Diamond one sometimes feels cooler even though the fabric is slightly thicker than the OR.
- Pack: REI Swiftland TT - the old version. I got this on sale for like $60 including the soft flasks and it’s great for the price. I do wish the “zipper phone pocket” would actually fit my phone, I use it for trash instead. Comfy enough and carries what I need
- Watch: Garmin Instinct 2 Solar - Longest battery life of the mid-range watches without spending twice as much for a fenix or enduro. The only time this has given me trouble was when I started a 4 hour run with 2 hours of battery left, which led to a pretty glitchy track by the end. I made sure to charge it the night before and it worked great.
Upgrades I’m making:
- Buying a 1.5L Reservoir - I only own a 3L bladder which is too large for the pack, so I just took an extra 500mL soft flask (total of 3 flasks for 1.5L). As mentioned above, I really could have used at least another .5L, and a smaller lighter bladder that fits my pack is a no-brainer
- Buying a 150mL Soft Flask for Gels - I skimped on gels due to cost and packaging waste and regretted that decision. Making my own gels solves the first issue, putting them in a reusable soft flask solves the second.
I didn’t bring poles on this one because I hadn’t been training with them and the poles I own are quite heavy. I do plan on doing some test runs with and without poles for a comparison, and maybe asking for a nice pair of Leki TrailSharks for Christmas.
I also did not bring sunglasses or apply sunscreen because the vast majority of the run was in the trees. I threw my hood up the few times in was in the sun for longer and it worked out just fine.
That’s pretty much it! I had a good time, am proud of my performance, and learned some valuable lessons for the future runs I have planned where bailouts and cell service are not as readily available.