This is a Throwback
Thursday post. I friend of mine left
yesterday for a trip to Iceland. While
he’s there, he’ll run the Reykjavik Half Marathon. Here’s the race report I wrote four years
ago, when I ran the marathon.
On August 18-22, 2011, Deb and I traveled to Reykjavik,
Iceland, and I ran the Reykjavik Marathon.
We traveled with Marathon Tours & Travel. There were over 100 runners and family
members in our tour group. We stayed at
Hotel Plaza Reykjavik, which is in the heart of the downtown area. It was a very convenient location. There were dozens of shops and restaurants
within a few blocks of the hotel. We
were also only a few blocks from the start and finish of the marathon. Iceland typically experiences scattered rain
showers, but we enjoyed sunny skies for four straight days.
Thursday, August 18
We arrived in Reykjavik in the morning, after an overnight
flight from Minneapolis on Iceland Air. I
was lucky to get a little sleep on the flight – a rarity for me. Deb wasn’t as fortunate. When we got to the hotel, it was too early to
check into our room, so we stored our luggage and did some souvenir shopping. At noon, our group walked a few blocks from
the hotel to a restaurant on the waterfront, where we had a reception
lunch. After lunch, we had a guided tour
of Reykjavik. Our first stop was Holdi House, where Reagan and Gorbachev held a
summit meeting in 1986.
Our next stop was the Pearl, a large dome that’s part of
Reykjavik’s main water storage facility.
It’s on a hill and has great views of the rest of the city.
The last stop on our tour was the National
Museum which chronicles Iceland’s history, beginning with early Viking
settlements. After about an hour at the
museum, we had dinner downtown and then went to bed early. We both slept for 10 ½ hours. After that, we were adjusted to the local
time zone, so we didn’t experience much jet lag.
Friday, August 19
We got up early, so we would have time for breakfast before
leaving at 8 AM for an all-day tour of the southern coast. Our hotel had a nice breakfast buffet, so we
started each day with a hearty breakfast.
This tour was an optional excursion, but most of the people in our group
signed up for it. As we left Reykjavik,
we drove through the Christianity lava fields, so named because it was lava
that flowed in the same year that Iceland converted to Christianity. There were steam vents in this area, and we
saw a geothermal power plant. Iceland
has an abundance of inexpensive electricity.
Most of it is generated from underground steam or from hydroelectric
plants. Underground steam is also used
to heat the water, giving Reykjavik an abundant supply of hot water. Next, we drove past Hekla. Hekla is an active volcano that erupts about
once every ten years. At one time, many
people in Europe thought Hekla was the entrance to Hell. We also had views of Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that erupted in
2010, disrupting air travel throughout Europe. Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss, a 40 meter waterfall with a trail
that allows you to walk behind the falls.
Our next stop was
just outside of a farm that was nearly destroyed by the eruption of
Eyjafjallajökull. The farm is doing well
today, but after the eruption, the entire area was covered with ash and the sky
was black for several days. Our next
stop was a beach with some interesting rock formations including basalt
pillars. Above the rocks we could see
puffins nesting.
Our easternmost stop
was Vik, where Deb got a good deal on a beautiful wool sweater. After a lunch stop in Vik, we drove back to
Reykjavik. On the way back, we stopped
at Skógafoss, another waterfall that
had a rainbow at the base of the falls.
At the end of the
tour, we stopped at the sports arena where the marathon expo was held. This was the same arena where Bobby Fischer
defeated Boris Spassky to win the world chess championship in 1972.
Saturday, August 20
This was the day of the marathon. I lined up near the front and went out at a
fast pace, in hopes of finishing the race in 3 hours. I ran the first half of the race in 1:30, but
after 18K, the marathon and half marathon courses separated. Once the half marathon runners were gone, I
was mostly running by myself. I found it
difficult to maintain the pace, and without a pack of runners to follow, I
started to slow down. At one point, a
runner from Germany caught up to me, and I sped up to stay with him for the
next four or five kilometers. We got
separated at a water stop, and after that I slowed down again. I finished in 3:06:27. It was my second fastest time this year, but
I was a little disappointed that I’m still a long way from breaking 3
hours. I’m realizing that to run at my
limit, I need to be in a pack of fast runners.
The marathon course was relatively flat and gave us a great tour of
Reykjavik, starting and finishing downtown.
The race was the first event of Reykjavik Culture
Night. There were cultural events being
held throughout the day at various locations throughout the downtown area. Our hotel was right next to a town square
where rock bands were performing all day.
The entire square and the surrounding blocks were packed with people all
day. It was basically an all-day street
festival in the entire downtown area.
There were street vendors selling a variety of food including hamburgers
and cotton candy.
In the evening, we
went out to see the first lighting of the newly completed opera house. It was built up as a must-see event, but
turned out to be disappointing. Everyone
was expecting the lighting to be spectacular.
At 11 PM, we watched fireworks over the harbor.
Sunday, August 21
After getting up early for breakfast, we started another
all-day tour at 8 AM. This was called
the Golden Circle Tour. Our first stop
was a lake where the first Icelandic parliament used to meet. This location is in the rift valley, where
the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are slowly pulling part at a
rate of about 2 cm per year.
Next we stopped at Geysir, the site of several geysers and
hot springs. This is where the word
geyser comes from.
After Geysir, we
stopped at Gullfoss, the most magnificent waterfalls in Iceland.
We walked all around the falls taking pictures before taking
a lunch break. After lunch we drove to
the Blue Lagoon at the southwestern tip of the island. The Blue Lagoon is a pool fed by water from
hot springs. The water is warm and has
an opaque turquoise color from the minerals it absorbs as it filters through
the volcanic rock. We soaked in the Blue
Lagoon for over 2 hours before returning to Reykjavik.
Monday, August 22
Our flight back to Minneapolis wasn’t until the afternoon,
so we were able to sleep in and enjoy a leisurely breakfast. It rained all morning, which dampened our
enthusiasm to go out and do more shopping.
We spent a good part of the day visiting with other runners at the hotel
and at the airport while we waited for our flight.
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