On a trek from Florida to Maine, Connecticut ultramarathoner wants to raise awareness about the East Coast Greenway
It was Day 62 for Shan Riggs. He had run 2,300 miles from Key West, Fla., and now he was home, in Connecticut, but he still had 700 miles to go before he could complete the entire East Coast Greenway.
He had been chased by a rooster for a mile in Florida, run on a beautiful trail along the Hudson River in New York, gone through five pairs of shoes and averaged 40 miles a day since he started the trek up the East Coast on April 16.
“Going across the country on foot is kind of a great way to piece together this country of ours,” said Riggs, 43. “It’s nice to do a little bit of good for a good cause. One thing I know how to do is run really, really far. If we can have that be for a good cause, that’s great.”
Riggs, an ultramarathoner from Southbury, had lost his job as events coordinator with the Hartford Marathon Foundation in 2020 when the pandemic shut everything down. He decided to run across the country to raise money for Foodshare, based in Bloomfield. He raised over $40,000 by the time he splashed into the waters of Long Island Sound at Hammonasset Beach in Madison on Dec. 1, three months and 3,250 miles after he started in San Francisco.
This would be a different trip – he wanted to be the first person to run the 3,000 miles of the entire East Coast Greenway from Florida to Maine, while raising awareness about the Greenway and funds to maintain the trails and connect other unconnected trails together.
“About 1,000 miles is separated trail, the rest is on roads or sidewalks,” Riggs said. “The whole mission of the Greenway is to put all that together so it’s safe for cyclists and walkers and runners.
“So as the first person who is running the whole thing, one of the things I want to do is point out the fact there is a lot of work still to be done. We have these nice spaces, but there’s also a lot that’s a little sketchy to run or walk on. We’ve been fine, it’s been safe so far, but it could be better.”
His partner, Josh Grant, who is riding a bicycle, which carries gear and supplies, with Riggs said her least favorite part was in South Carolina.
“There were a couple of sections that were kind of stressful,” Grant said. “Route 17 is a highway section in South Carolina and there’s no way around it. There were some sections in some cities - you don’t have a lot of space, the bike ride is littered with debris so it’s not safe. My favorite section was the Hudson River Greenway in Manhattan.”
The Greenway is comprised of trails connected by roads. When Riggs entered Connecticut in Greenwich, he ran on roads all the way to New Haven, where he and Grant got onto the Farmington Canal Trail, which they took all the way to Simsbury before they had to get back on the road again to get to Hartford. Friday, they will head toward Rhode Island on rail trail, then up through Massachusetts then Maine. The journey is expected to last another two weeks approximately and end in Calais, Maine, on the Canadian border.
Riggs has raised $8,000 so far; his goal is $30,000.
“It’s been as smooth as this kind of thing could be,” Riggs said. “It’s amazing what the body can get used to. I’m stronger now than I was the first week. Now I just wake up every day and it’s just what we do. It’s just life.”
For more information on Riggs and his trip, go to Home | RunAcrossAmerica (eastcoastgreenwayexpedition.com)
Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.
