Deconstructing the Asheville Citizen-Times Half Marathon – Part Two
I picked up where I left off on segment one, at the intersection of Kimberly and Griffing. Here is a link to what I ran today:
http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=301450
The course heads north on Kimberly and for about three miles there’s nothing new as compared to the previous course. We run up to Beaverdam, cross onto Elk Mountain Scenic Highway and enjoy a rolling run in and around the Country Club of Asheville. Cross Merrimon and run around Beaver Lake and then we get into some new portions of the course, with some rolling hills and find our way into Woodfin, heading down Elkmont, generally downhill to Riverside.
But what goes down must come up. When the course hits Riverside, it travels south a short distance before turning left on Lookout. This is a long uphill pull — probably about 3/4 of a mile. Although there are many little houses along this road, it feels remote. During my run on a Saturday morning at about 8:30 I only saw one car, two human beings, one dog and one cat.
You’re rewarded at the end of the uphill pull with a great view from the northwest over UNCA and towards downtown Asheville. Lookout turns into Barnard and intersects with Edgewood. The course turns right at Edgewood but I went left to head back to my car.
If you’re thinking about running this, a good place to park is at Jones Park:
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
There are hills up by the Asheville Country Club which are steep but short. The big uphill is Lookout Rd at about mile 9. Once you climb that you have a downhill for about a mile through UNCA to a flat portion along Weaver BLVD. Then you have a gradual uphill pull on Broadway into downtown where it becomes Lexington. I did the entire course today with three other runnners and I estimate that it’s about a 2 minute longer course than previous years for someone who has done a 1:48-1:49 time. That’s just my guess. It will all become reality on September 12th. Check out my newest post under the Citizen-Times Half Marathon Category.
Cheers.
I ran the first segment today but didn’t get into the second segment. I started at the YMCA and did the segment all the way to crossing Merrimon, then headed back up Merrimon and a little jaunt through downtown before heading back to the Y. A little over 10 miles. I didn’t get an early start and in the heat I felt like the long uphill runs on Kimberly, Country Club, and Inglewood (near the golf course) were pretty rough. Roughest for me was the uphill pull up Merrimon all the way back into town. Of course, that’s not on the A C-T course. This was my longest run to date, and in the heat I was sapped by the end. Looks like there are some pretty “mega” hills on the last part of the course. I’m gonna try to get out and run down Merrimon and finish the course in a week or so (I’ll skip the first half).