Course

The Sea Legs Shuffle ten-mile course has changed. Don’t get your hopes up—it’s still a full ten miles, and a certified USATF course. So your PR will be valid. We’ve straightened the course, eliminating two crossings of Route 146, thereby improving runner safety. The course still includes a spectacular loop around scenic Sachems Head, and a lovely start and finish at Jacob’s Beach in Guilford, where a post-race dip in Long Island Sound is not out of the question.



View 10 mile course.


View 5K course.

Course Information

The gruesome origin of the name Sachems Head, through which most of the Ten-Mile race passes, contrasts completely with the toney character of the shoreline neighborhood. Three sachems, chiefs of the Pequot tribe, were killed there and beheaded by Mohegans. According to Wikipedia, long-standing tensions between the Puritan English of Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay colonies and the Pequot escalated into open warfare in 1637. The Mohegan and the Narragansett sided with the English. Perhaps 1,500 Pequot were killed in battles or hunted down. Others were captured and distributed as slaves or household servants. A few escaped to be absorbed by the Mohawk or the Niantic on Long Island. Eventually, some would try to return to their traditional lands, while family groups of “friendly” Pequots stayed. Of those enslaved, most were awarded to the allied tribes, but many were also sold to plantations in the West Indies. The Mohegan in particular treated their Pequot hostages so severely that colonial officials of Connecticut Colony eventually removed them. Two reservations were established by 1683. While both of their land bases were exceedingly reduced by what eventually became the state of Connecticut, they continue to exist to the present.

The conflict between the Pequot and the Mohegan continues to this day as the two tribes compete for gaming revenues at their respective casinos.