My sister and I thought it would be “super fun” to do a half marathon on my birthday weekend, so we signed up for the Run Ocean Isle Half Marathon which took place on Sunday October 2, 2016.

And it was “super fun,” minus that whole half marathon thing. My sister’s friend’s parents were kind enough to let us stay in their oceanfront condo, and it was definitely nice sitting on the balcony listening to the waves. There’s not a lot to do at Ocean Isle, which is why I like it – peaceful, calm, and people aren’t everywhere.

Ocean Isle is only an hour and a half from my little North Carolina town, but my sister had a longer drive, so Friday was spent driving, chatting briefly, then bed.

I had really wanted to jump on the acai bowl bandwagon and see what all the fuss was about, so when we got up on Saturday morning, we walked over to Drift Coffee and Kitchen. We both got an acai bowl, a latte, and shared a piece of banana bread. I’ve been craving that acai bowl ever since! It was almost too beautiful to eat. Almost.

The rest of the day we spent on the beach, just lounging. We’d both had a stressful week, so it was nice to have a sister weekend and just hang out without any schedules. My sister’s friend joined us that night and we all went out for seafood (which was not good at all, and I’ll avoid mentioning the restaurant’s name). We celebrated my birthday with a puppy cake and hit the hay early.

The first six miles of the race was enjoyable. The course is basically flat – although you do have to run over the bridge that connects the island to the mainland – but even that wasn’t horrible because you get to witness the sunrise. When I finally reached the 8-mile marker I told myself that I would never run another half marathon (joke was on me! We had signed up over a year early for the Rock ‘n Roll Half in D.C.). 8 miles is typically when I reach my boredom limit – I’m mentally uninterested in the remainder of the race, which was problematic in this one because I was battling a hip injury plus the last five miles weren’t very interesting in terms of scenery and entertainment.

My sister’s friend tracked me down with about three miles to go, and ran/walked alongside me the rest of the way (seriously, how sweet is that?). Right after the above picture was taken, I started feeling sick, and to spare you the awful details of the remainder of the day, I really thought I was going to spend the evening in the ER. I’m still not sure what happened (I took a prescription pain reliever before we started…on an empty stomach…for my hip, and my pharmacist friends also thought I might have gotten some type of food poisoning from the shrimp), but all I know is that it was terrifying and I’m lucky to have kind, caring friends.

I hope this doesn’t discourage you from running Ocean Isle! If you want some motivation, check out this “big ass” medal (their words) and sweet shirt!

Have you ever done the Run Ocean Isle Beach half? Anybody else have horror stories from running?