Flying Pirate Half Marathon

Runners get to soak up both the stark natural beauty of North Carolina’s Outer Banks as well as a piece of history — where the aviation industry quite literally took flight for the very first time — at the Flying Pirate Half Marathon & First Flight 5K, which take runners on a point-to-point route between the small coastal towns of Kitty Hawk and Nags Head.

Students of early aviation history especially will be familiar with Kitty Hawk and nearby Kill Devil Hills, where the now-legendary brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first successful powered flight over the beach here on these barrier islands just off the coast of North Carolina.

Though that first flight lasted all of 12 seconds and lifted the plane only about 20 feet off the ground, later that same day the Wright brothers piloted additional flights that lasted nearly a full minute, and would of course help launch the birth of human-powered aviation and indeed, play a crucial role in helping connect the modern world.