racing again

It’s been less than a month since my last half marathon, but this morning I’m taking on another one. This is a new one to me. The Bethel Half Marathon. Bethel is a small town outside of Waynesville, which is about 40 or so minutes from Asheville.

The Asheville Citizen-Times half marathon capped at 1000 runners. The 5k had another 500 or 600 runners this year. The Bethel race will have fewer than 300 runners, for both the half marathon and 5k races. The AC-T race entertainment and a lot of spectators cheering us on. It also had pretty major hills that were not so fun to tackle. At the finish of the Bethel race, they have homemade soup for the runners.

I hear the Bethel race has one hard hill (around mile 2 or 3) and is relatively flat. And this is what sold me on the race.

My training schedule called for 12 miles today. So what’s an extra mile? A little over a week ago, I was still trying to decide on the race, when I saw this photo gallery. Look how flat it is?? And I’ll have views of Cold Mountain (the real deal – not the scenes shot in Romania for the movie!) and I’ll pass by cows and horses, and who knows what else!

And did you know that western North Carolina only has two half marathons in the entire region? They just happen to fall within a month of each other. Crazy.

So there you have it. By the time you read this, I may already be in the middle of my race. Wish me luck.