I’ve seen Flat Bart around – on Facebook, on Twitter, in my dreams.

Well, I wouldn’t take it that far, but Flat Bart is just that – a flat paper version of Bart Yasso, the Chief Running Officer for Rodale, the publisher of Runner’s World Magazine.

Do an Internet search for “Flat Bart” and you’ll see all the places he’s been. You can even find out how to create your own.

But did you know that Flat Bart paid a recent visit to the Blue Ridge Marathon course?

I gave Flat Bart a tour of many parts of the course over the weekend. Check out some of the highlights.

I think he had a good time. He kept that same smile in all the photos.

I just hope that the Flat Bart tour was enough to convince Real Bart to pay a visit to Roanoke in April.

For more photos of the Flat Bart tour, visit the Blue Ridge Marathon Facebook page. You can also discover Flat Bart on Twitter by searching for #FlatBart.

David currently resides in Midlothian, Va., but is a native of Bedford who has run the Blue Ridge Half twice. He claims to be brave enough to run the full in 2013. He is co-moderator of #RunChat, a twice a month Q&A chat on Twitter about running. For more information about #RunChat, visit www.therunchat.com