⏵ Course guide · Midlands South Carolina trail series
The Sandhills Trail Race Series runs four distances on one repeating 7.75 mile loop at Sesquicentennial State Park in Columbia: a 7.5 Mile single lap, a 25K, a 50K, and a 30-Hour timed event with an open finish line. I will walk you through picking a distance and the loop itself first, then give you a pacing and fueling plan for a race built on repetition. There are free calculators along the way to dial in your own numbers.
These facts come from the official RunSignup event listing. Check the current year details before you commit. Race logistics can change year to year.
Every distance at Sandhills shares the same 7.75 mile loop at Sesquicentennial State Park, so the choice comes down to how many laps you want to run, not which course to learn.
The course is soft pine needle-covered singletrack with some paved sections around the park lake, and the organizer calls it fast, runnable, and beginner-friendly. Expect rolling terrain rather than steep climbing, which puts the emphasis on pacing across laps instead of surviving any single hard section.
The 7.5 Mile is a single lap, the 25K is two laps, and the 50K is four laps of the same loop. There is a fully stocked aid station at start/finish every time you come through, plus a water stop at the mile 5 campground loop, so restocking is frequent no matter which distance you pick.
The 30-Hour is a timed event rather than a fixed distance: you keep looping until your clock runs out, and your final mileage is whatever you cover. Reach 13 laps, just over 100 miles, and you earn a belt buckle. The event listing gives an overall course-open window of up to 32 hours to complete any distance, some cushion built in beyond the raw 30-hour clock.
A loop course rewards even splits and punishes an aggressive first lap, since you will run the exact same terrain again on tired legs.
With only one or two laps, it is tempting to go out hard. Hold a pace you could repeat on your worst lap of the day, since the loop does not change and a fast first lap only makes the second one harder. Use the race-time calculator to check what a given lap pace does to your total finish time.
Four laps for the 50K, or an open number for the 30-Hour, means thinking in terms of a sustainable per-lap split rather than a single overall goal pace. Build in planned walk breaks on later laps before you need them, and use the race-equivalent calculator to translate a recent long effort into a realistic total-distance goal for your own race.
⏵ Free tools to plan your effort
Coming through start/finish every lap makes Sandhills a forgiving course to fuel, especially for the longer distances.
You pass a fully stocked aid station at start/finish on every single lap, plus a water stop at mile 5, so there is no need to carry a full race worth of supplies at once. Aim for roughly 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour while moving and sodium in the 300 to 700 mg per liter range, adjusted for the day, since South Carolina in late February can still run mild.
If you are racing the 30-Hour toward a buckle-range distance, your fueling plan needs to survive an overnight stretch, not just a single afternoon. Stage warm food or different flavors at your drop bag for the overnight laps, since appetite and gut tolerance shift the longer you are on your feet.
⏵ Build your fueling plan
Get a carb, sodium, fluid, and caffeine plan per hour built for your weight and your own target distance with the free ultra fueling calculator. Browse the rest of the free running tools at the tools hub.
⏵ Train for it with Summit Line
Get a training plan built around YOUR fitness and whichever Sandhills distance you pick, from a first 7.5 Mile to a buckle-range 30-Hour. Summit Line reads your real training, builds the durability a repeating-loop race demands, and rehearses your fueling so race day is something you execute, not guess at.
Four options on the same repeating loop at Sesquicentennial State Park: a 7.5 Mile single lap, a 25K over two laps, a 50K over four laps, and a 30-Hour timed event where you simply cover as many laps as you can before time runs out. All four share the same 7.75 mile loop, so you can pick your distance based on how many laps you want to run rather than learning a different course for each option.
It is an open-ended timed event on the 7.75 mile loop: you keep looping for up to 30 hours and your final distance is however many laps you complete. Runners who reach 13 laps, just over 100 miles, earn a belt buckle. The overall event listing gives up to 32 hours for any distance to finish, so there is some cushion built in beyond the raw 30-hour clock.
The organizer describes the 7.75 mile loop itself as fast, runnable, and beginner-friendly: soft pine needle singletrack with some paved sections around the lake and rolling rather than steep terrain. What makes the 50K a real test is repetition, four laps back to back, so pacing discipline and not going out too hard on lap one matter more here than raw climbing difficulty.
The event listing states a course-open window of up to 32 hours to complete any distance. No separate per-lap or intermediate cutoffs are published for the 7.5 Mile, 25K, or 50K, so if you are targeting a tight finish window, confirm current cutoff details directly with Upstate Race Series before race day.
With a course-open window stretching toward 32 hours, this is a genuine multi-lap, potentially overnight fueling challenge. There is a fully stocked aid station at start/finish every lap plus a water stop at the mile 5 campground loop, so you can restock frequently. Aim for roughly 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour while moving and sodium in the 300 to 700 mg per liter range, and build your own per-hour numbers with the free ultra fueling calculator.
The 25K or 50K are reasonable entry points if you want a beginner-friendly course: the loop itself is described as fast and runnable, aid is available every lap at start/finish, and you never have to navigate unfamiliar terrain since you repeat the same 7.75 miles. The 30-Hour option is a bigger step, better suited to runners who already have a multi-lap or timed event under their belt, given the sleep management and pacing demands of an open-ended field.
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<a href="https://runsummitline.com/guides/sandhills-trail-race-series">The Sandhills Trail Race Series course guide</a><iframe src="https://runsummitline.com/embed/race/sandhills-trail-race-series" style="width:100%;max-width:420px;height:180px;border:0;" loading="lazy" title="Sandhills Trail Race Series course guide by Summit Line"></iframe>This guide is independent and for planning only. The distances, dates, and course come from public sources and can change year to year, so confirm the current specifics with the official race before you register or run. The fueling and pacing advice is general and not medical advice.
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