Set for its 14th annual running this year, the NHRMC Wilmington Marathon Madness Marathon & Half Marathon (formerly known as the Wrightsville Beach Marathon & Half Marathon) takes runners along a route that winds through a number of coastal communities here on Wrightsville Beach, one of North Carolina’s coastal resort areas that features ample opportunities for golf, tennis, shopping and dining, and lies just a few miles from nearby Wilmington, N.C.
Both the full and the half marathons share the same starting line on Wrightsville Beach’s Salisbury Street, overlooking the calm waters of the Intracoastal waterway that lies between the North Carolina mainland and the Atlantic Ocean.
From there, runners follow a point-to-point course that takes them through some of the area’s most sought-after neighborhoods, most notably the community known as Landfall, all the way to the finish line in nearby downtown Wilmington.
From the start on Salisbury Street, runners follow the route westward toward the mainland and merges onto Causeway Drive, where runners cross the bridge over the causeway and make their way onto the mainland. From there, they follow Eastwood Road as the route turns onto Highway 74. Runners follow this road for much of the course’s remainder before turning into downtown Wilmington.
Much of the course is fast and flat, with elevation reaching a high point of 60 feet above sea level, making this half marathon a good choice for runners wishing to set personal records.
More than 2,300 runners crossed the finish line in the full marathon and half marathon combined in 2016, including just over 1,800 finishers in the half marathon.
