LUMBERTON — If you see a man running around town in Lumberton for hours on end Saturday, you might jokingly wonder if he’s running a marathon.

But he is.

The Boston Marathon.

Yes, in Lumberton.

A virtual version, anyway.

Josh Whitley was registered to run the 2020 Boston Marathon in April, then after it was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was again set to run it this fall.

“I’m excited about that,” Whitley said. “I just want to say I did it.”

The makeup Marathon was set to be Monday. But like so many other things this year, it too was canceled.

Instead of punting entirely to 2021, event organizers are allowing participants to run the race virtually — a full marathon of 26.2 miles, wherever they are, any day between last Monday and this Monday, the day the race was to be run.

Those who finish will receive the finisher’s medal and the runner’s bib they would have received had the race been held in its regular format.

Whitley has chosen Saturday morning for his virtual race, and says Lumberton actually lays out well for such an event.

“What’s interesting is how far you can go in Lumberton without really going anywhere,” Whitley said. “I’m running in various neighborhoods, across town and back, so I can run without going anywhere, run 26 miles without feeling like I’m going in a bunch of circles.”

The conditions will be tougher than any marathon that Whitley, who tries to run a marathon per year, has ever run in, with temperatures in the high 70s to low 80s and high humidity, plus a moderate rain chance.

“All the marathons I’ve done have been in cooler temps; training has been harder because it’s in the summer, in the heat,” Whitley said. “The pace will be much slower — I hope to finish in a little under four hours.”

But while the conditions will be tougher, Whitley says his nerves are far less for this race than others, as he’s running a familiar route.

“Normally you’d have anticipation, be nervous, before any big event,” Whitley said. “Any sports activity I’ve ever done, any game, any match, you get nervous before and excited to be there. In this case it just seems like another day, another training run, it just doesn’t have same excitement.

“My motivation now is to say I did it in the craziest year; the (Marathon) bombing a few years ago would be one of those crazy years, but this qualifies as one of crazy years.”

Runners can track their progress through GPS — Whitley, for instance, uses a Garmin watch — to submit to Boston Marathon organizers in order to be given their prize for completion.

Whitley has been able to continue training during the pandemic with little change from the norm, since running can be done alone with no risk of infecting others.

“The one nice piece I’ve learned with running is, with all this going on, I can go by myself, I won’t infect anybody and they won’t infect me,” Whitley said. “Training to run is still a doable thing. We’ve got a really good small town to do it in. I feel safe on the roads and Luther Britt Park is a great place to do it.”

A time of 3 hours, 7 minutes and 59 seconds in a 2019 marathon qualified Whitley for Boston. The insurance agent says that he’s still getting faster, even at age 42.

“The goal for me is to keep challenging myself,” Whitley said. “I’ve gotten older and actually gotten faster, maintaining health and avoiding injuries.”

Runners who qualified to participate in the 2020 Boston Marathon will be allowed to resubmit their same qualifying time when registration for the 2021 Marathon opens in October. Whitley plans to travel to Boston in April for next year’s race.

“I’m not really disappointed (about the cancellation) because it’s still out there, the ability to do it is still there” Whitley said. “The reason it’s been postponed is not unique to the Boston Marathon; everything’s been postponed or changed or altered, from school to other sporting events to restaurants to our entire life. I don’t think about it right now as any different than anything else we do.

“I think they’ve made the best decisions they can make, and have been very accommodating to make people still feel like they’re participating,” he said.

In the most unusual of years, that participation is giving runners the most unique of opportunities: running a Boston Marathon in the streets of their hometown.