First, I need to admit a bias. I LOVE Greenville. My family and I spend every Saturday there visiting the Zoo, walking the trails, and enjoying its general awesomeness. I was going to love this race, whether I wanted to or not.

My running partner kindly picked up our packets so I didn't go to the expo but she did pick me up an amazing shirt from the Greenville Running Company. I included a picture for your viewing pleasure.

The race starts outside the local baseball stadium in downtown Greenville, so there's plenty of bathrooms to handle pre-race jitters. This is not a big race, about 500 marathoners.

We got started on time - always exciting - and made our way to to Cleveland Park and the Swamp Rabbit Trail. This trail, also known as the SRT, is one of the coolest things about Greenville. It is a paved path that travels all over the city. It is popular with runners, walkers, and cyclists. It is free from traffic and in most cases surrounded by trees, leaving you with this wonderful "I love nature!" feeling.

The majority of the race is run on this trail so course support was minimal. However, the volunteers and the supporters that were out there were very encouraging. There were adequate water stops but definitely lacking in the porta potty department. There was one bathroom on the beautiful campus at Furman University. It was clean, and there were no lines so that was a win.

This is an open course race, so as the day wore on and more and more Greenvillians were taking advantage of the fabulous weather to enjoy the great outdoors, the trail got a little crowded. Thankfully, everyone was pretty respectful and understanding in terms of who had right of way.

The finish line is located inside the baseball stadium, which is awesome except for the endless number of stairs you need to climb to get to the top and ultimately out of the stadium. It's actually pretty cruel to make people who just ran 26.2 miles climb a long flight of stairs but it's also perfect excuse to laugh at yourself and others.

The swag was cool; a pint glass, a mug, a nice race shirt, and the medal was simple but attractive.

This was a great low key and enjoyable race that I would definitely recommend.