Buffalo Creek Half Marathon

Most of the race — except for the first mile and a half and the last half-mile, which are run on paved roads — takes runners over the crushed limestone trails of the Butler-Freeport Community Trail, a rails-to-trails project in southeast Butler County that’s converted the former Western Pennsylvania Railroad into roughly 15 miles of limestone trails perfect for running, walking, hiking and biking, with numerous trailheads all within about an hour’s drive of Pittsburgh.
The race indeed follows a long, steady downhill descent from the start in Cabot to the finish line in Freeport, starting at an elevation of about 1,320 feet above sea level and descending throughout the race’s 13.1 miles to the finish, which lies at about 780 feet above sea level.
There’s a brief flat stretch between about mile 2.5 and the mile 4 marker; other than that, most of the rest of the course follows a long, gentle downhill slope.
Runners for the Buffalo Creek Half — so named because most of the trail used in the race follows the creek by the same name — should arrive prepared for cold weather, as past years have seen some pretty cold temperatures.
The scenery more than makes up for any bitter weather, however, as the race is scheduled during the fall foliage season, when the leaves are turning throughout the forests that border the trail.