Merrill’s Cove Cane Creek Half Marathon

I’ve done this run a week before the Asheville Citizen Times Half Marathon just to get my head right and my confidence up.  This is about 13.5 miles with some serious hill challenge.  I have it mapped at USATF’s America’s Running Routes website.

http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=78089

It starts at the intersection of Merrill’s Cove Road and Chestnut Mountain Ridge and travels north, uphill, for just over 1.5 miles to the intersection of Merrill’s Cove Road, Rose Hill Road and Pinners Cover Road.  It’s a slap in the face start to a run, uphill pretty much all the way.  Then you double back to Concord Road, jump over to Williams Road, head down to Mills Gap Road, double back and take Williams Road to Cane Creek, wind through a nice little neighborhood and start heading back.

It’s an awesome prep run that helped me do better than I expected in the Half Marathon the following week.