Bent Creek: Green's Lick Trail

Today we kicked our training up a notch and took a long run in Bent Creek and included the tough Green's Lick Trail...


It's difficult to find much running information on-line regarding this trail.  Most information is provided for mountain bikers who take the down hill route because of the trails steepness.  We decided to include this trail into our long run after reading about it in Trish Brown's book "Asheville Trail Running" and having not explored this section of Bent Creek yet, we thought today would be the perfect day.  Trish describes Green's Lick trail (going uphill) as a difficult trail that requires guts as well as lots of stamina.  Forest Service Bent Creek Trail Map rates Green's Lick as the most difficult trail. This trail is not a very long, only 2.2 miles, but what a quad and butt burner.  It reminded us of the steepness of Scout Canyon Road at Mount Charleston in Las Vegas but without the altitude headache! This was quite the workout today, and we are planning to include it in our upcoming training runs in preparation for the Frosty Foot 50k in January and the Asheville/Biltmore Marathon in March.

 Here's a short video from a mountain biker's view going down the trail. We had to step aside for several cyclist blazing down the hill...



Happy Running!
Eve & Bart