Midnight Sun Half Marathon (Race Recap)

Friday, June 23
Reykjavik, Iceland
Half Marathon #165
Weather - Overcast, windy and rainy

Maureen had first mentioned wanting to run this race for her 60th birthday at least a year ago. We thought it sounded pretty damn cool, and thought that we could get A trained and ready to run with us.

Fast forward.

Race Night:

The race started at 9:00 pm. We had been out all day walking around (we think we had done at least 8 miles of walking by the time we headed to the start). We had eaten dinner and gotten dressed and decided to head over to the start by 7:30. We weren't quite sure what roads were going to be closed or where we could park. We parked on the back side of the sports hall and went inside to find out where we could drop our bags and to use the bathroom. There were already a lot of people inside - in addition to the half marathon, there was also a 10K and 5K. We quickly made friends with a group of guys from Florida and West Virginia (we struck up a conversation because they were wearing awesome Christmas tights under their shorts).

We then ran into Mo's friend Heather (she used to work at the Belmar store, but moved to Tennessee in the last year), and shortly after that we saw Matt and Molly, two elites on the Roost team. We managed to get a team picture and then realized we only had about 15 minutes until the race started so we headed to the bathroom.

We finally decided to just risk going out in the wind/rain early and use the port-o-potties, which had no line.

We got in line in the chute, the 10K started at the same time, took a selfie, and then we were off. A has regularly been running a long run of around 8 miles, but it had been a few months since she did her 13.1 mile training run. She had confessed that she was really nervous, but she was in good spirits and we did our best to rein her in so she didn't burn out.

Having run a few races outside of the US, it is fun to run in kilometers because it feels like you are making more progress, especially when every mile is marked.

I had no idea what to expect from the course - all I had done in advance was register. I assumed it would be at sea level and be fairly flat, so I was surprised when Mo started telling me about the climbing that we would have from 3-12km.

There were aid stations every 5k, and Mo and A both stopped to use the bathroom at the 5k mark. We ran the entire first section and took walk breaks on the hills in the middle part of the race. I took lots of pictures - for a road race, it was really pretty! Tons of wildflowers and LOTS of green. Everyone stayed in a good mood for the entire race.

We hit some glorious downhill after the 12k mark. Hit the last aid station at 15k and then the real work started. A was getting tired and Mo was struggling a bit as well. We took walk breaks a bit more often.

The last mile or two it got really windy again on the course and we really just wanted to be done. Finally we could hear the finish line and we all kicked it into high gear. The wind was howling and the gates at the chute were knocked down as we were running across the finish line. Both Mo and A were most concerned about finishing under the 3 hour cutoff. We crossed the finish line at 2:37:42!!!

Official Time - 2:37:42
Garmin Time - 2:37:49
Garmin Distance - 13.30 miles
Garmin Pace - 11:51
Elevation Gain - 636'
Mile 1 - 11:30
Mile 2 - 10:56
Mile 3 - 12:50
Mile 4 - 13:14
Mile 5 - 12:04
Mile 6 - 12:40
Mile 7 - 12:06
Mile 8 - 11:25
Mile 9 - 11:13
Mile 10 - 11:46
Mile 11 - 11:33
Mile 12 - 12:03
Mile 13 - 11:22
Mile 13.3 - 10:12

After crossing the line we got mylar blankets and some instant hot chocolate. There was only bananas and pretzels at the finish - no other food or water!

We were freezing, but walked back to the sports hall to get our drop bags and head over to the hot springs pool. All runners had free entry and the pool was open until 1 am. Being in America, we are pretty modest. We spent a lot of time being embarrassed in the locker room since we had to shower naked before we could enter. By the time we got in a pool it was already 12:30. The water was not nearly as warm as I expected, which made it even harder to get out of the water to shower and get back into our yucky race clothes. We REALLY regretted not driving the car to the pool, as the walk back to the car was incredibly cold. By the time we got home we ate our donuts and went to bed... at like 2 in the morning.

Stupid night races.

Day 3 - Golden Circle (Gulfoss, Geysir, Pingvellier National Park) & Midnight Sun Run

Friday, June 23
Day 3

Mo's Birthday!

We got up early as we had a long list of things we wanted to do. After a breakfast of Icelandic yogurt, we started the drive to the Golden Circle. One of the best parts of having a rental car was being able to stop anytime we wanted to get pictures.

Random spray painted sheep

Tiny little trail to get to a scenic overlook

Worth pulling over for this one!

Our first stop was the famous Gulfoss waterfall. It was a short walk to the waterfall, where we took tons of pictures. I had worn the Newtons that I had glued together the night before, but sadly, the soles started to come unattached again. I guess it's a good thing that I figured that out BEFORE I needed to run in them.

So after my road shoes, the yellow Newton Distances fell apart, I decided to put on my other pair of shoes, my New Balance Vazee Summit trail shoes. Turns out, these are falling apart too (with only 43 miles???)

When we got back to the trail head we went into the restaurant to get cake to celebrate Maureen's birthday. A got a hot chocolate. Mo got coffee, and I, of course, got a beer.

We then headed back, stopping at Geysir. Imagine Yellowstone, only on a smaller scale. We took some pictures, walked around, then went to the gift shop so Mo could buy some souvenirs.

We still had some time so we went to the Pingvellier National Park. The first place we had to pay for parking, but $4ish for parking at a National Park (that had no entry fee) was no big deal. There were a lot of tourists and it was very windy and lightly raining. We enjoyed looking at more waterfalls - pretty much what Iceland is known for.

We got back to our Airbnb around 3 and decided to nap until about 5:00. The nap helped a ton. Trying to catch up on sleep, especially when it never gets dark, is tough. We then drove to pick up our packets for the Midnight Sun Run - the half marathon that we were all going to be running. Packet pick up was super quick, just got our bibs and a timing chip.

We then had to buy the race shirts, those apparently didn't come with our registration. We quickly stopped at Domino's (yes, again) for pre-race dinner and then Krispy Kreme for donuts.

We barely had enough time to eat some pizza and get changed before we needed to head back over to the sports hall for our race. (Race recap separately).

Steps - 44,077

To be continued...