Like many people, I am on a constant mission to ENJOY MY LIFE. Call me entitled, insult my work ethic, call me a godforsaken MILLENNIAL if you must, but I am comfortable admitting that my passions lie outside of the workplace. I’m comfortable admitting that I prioritize time for those passions. But there are only so many hours in a day, only so many days in a year, and so any opportunity I have to combine more than one of my passions and pursue them at the same time is an opportunity I cannot pass up.
Racing abroad is a completely new thing for me, but I think it’s also sort of a new thing in general. I can see myself 5 years ago scoffing at the very idea, believing it to have an air of privilege around it. Oh, you’re traveling across the entire world to run a race? Must be nice. I’ll be here inhaling boxed wine with boxed macaroni and cheese while I peruse photos of far-off places online.
But think about it. In this day and age, with the ceaseless drudgery of everyday adult life, sometimes you need a good excuse to get out of dodge. Maybe not necessarily for your boss, but for yourself. If you’re dreaming of finally going to Iceland, and you pay $25 for a race entry, then you have no choice but to bite the bullet and book the trip. Don’t want to lose out on $25, right?
So when my father, an attorney and frequenter of weekend getaways abroad, suggested that I fly across the Atlantic and revisit the tiny island of Iceland once again to run a race alongside his race-enthusiast wife and her race-enthusiast friends, I certainly was not going to say no. I’d been to Iceland before, and didn’t have a lot of vacation time, but here it was, right in my lap, the perfect excuse to hop on a plane and escape the awful monotony of adulthood.
Iceland in summertime
As you may know, I went on my very first solo travel trip to Iceland in December of 2016 (read all that I learned about Iceland in the winter here, or about some of the dope day trips I created for myself while there here), but Iceland in the summertime is a whole other animal. The winter is great because there’s the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights and the prices for tourists are cheaper, but there are only about 5 hours of daylight in a day to get your sightseeing in.
In the summertime, the daylight literally never goes away. Literally. The sun technically sets around midnight, but there is always a glow of light right below the horizon which makes getting into bed at 1am seem like something was amiss. Bars closing down while the light still spilled over the city was perturbing. The good news? Plenty of time to do what you want to do. The bad news?
SUMMERTIME IN ICELAND IS NOT FUXKING WARM. Not sure what I was expecting here. According to my backpack, which was full of summer dresses and flip-flops, I was expecting some tropical paradise complete with a complete lack of need for a jacket, but let me tell ya. I was so, so wrong. Half the time I was there, there was a steady, ice cold downpour complete with gale force winds, and the other half I spent wondering how an island that is bathed in sunlight almost 100% of the time on the longest day of the year can possibly be this chilly. Ten years ago I prided myself on always dressing perfectly for the weather; this weekend I indubitably put my high school self to shame.
If you’re coming to Iceland for the Midnight Sun Run, or any other time of the year, remember that the weather is really unpredictable. Shorts, leggings, a tank top, and fleece each may or may not be appropriate for this race. Trust me, I cursed myself many times, especially every time I looked around at my travel companions and longed to be the one under their cozy winter coats.
The expo
One of those times was on our way to the expo, a close to 2 mile walk from the center of Reykjavik where our Airbnb was located. The actual day of the race was insanely wet, with relentless rain and dreary skies. The walk to the expo was just short of miserable, but the process once inside was relatively easy. Packet pickup was inside Laugardalsholl, the “big white sports hall” in eastern Reykjavik. Preregistered racers were to pick up their numbers starting at 4pm, which gave us plenty of time to grab our bibs before inhaling a quick dinner of chicken and rice at a Thai restaurant in town. There are lots of Thai restaurants in Reykjavik, which was an unexpected DELIGHT.
The race
As a chronically injured 25-year-old who is clearly past her prime, I opted for the 5k race. The big one, the half marathon, is what all my travel companions gravitated towards, which is awesome, but my joint health is more important to me than throwing myself into a race that I desperately want to do but will probably leave me crippled and sad. The Midnight Sun Run also offers a 10k to those who are only slightly crippled (or those who just like the 10k distance).
I wore a t-shirt underneath my rain jacket, the only packing decision I found useful all weekend, with a pair of running leggings. Thank the lord for that rain jacket, and the bandana that kept my baby hairs from smacking me in my cold, wet face.
There was quite a bit of parking by the start line for anyone having rented a car, the race beginning right outside of where the expo had been. Everyone gathered inside Laugardalsholl prior to the races, trying to absorb all the warmth we could before venturing out into the wind. The premise of the race is that participants run in the midnight sun on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, meaning the sun stays even brighter for 24 hours than any other summer day. It’s a cool concept, even despite the fact that we did not witness one iota of sunshine the entire race.
The half marathon and 10k both went off at 9pm, and the 5k at 9:20. I obviously have spent too much of my life too close to the equator, because the fact that it felt like 4pm at the gun was so surreal and exciting to me that I probably took 50 pictures just of the sky in the middle of the night to hysterically text to my boyfriend with lots of shocked looking emojis.
The 5k itself ran in a loop around the sports hall, mostly in the sports complex and on residential roads. This was my first race in one entire year, when I ran the Baltimore Women’s Classic with my mother and sister and then decided to temporarily retire my running shoes and dive headfirst into my prolotherapy experiment. My meniscus had torn itself in that year of rest, the universe just fuxking with me for its own sick pleasure apparently, so I was incredibly nervous about pounding the pavement again.
Somehow, after running about 30 miles in an entire year, my race felt amazing. I started off around 8:45 pace, knowing full well I’d have to drop off the minute my knee started to ache or my lungs couldn’t take in enough oxygen, but it never happened. I dropped my last mile to 8:00 minutes, the rain blowing aggressively into my face like little ice daggers, painful and vicious but not a deterrent. My overall time was 26:11, 6 minutes or so off my fastest 5k ever but putting a smile on my face all the same. I finished without pain, I overcame three separate injuries over the course of 18 months, and I was feeling like my old self again. IN ICELAND, NO LESS.
The rain was not forgiving to my stupid smart phone, so I had to run to the grocery store and get some rice to put it in overnight. Another instance of poor planning on my part (because who holds an iPhone in their hand as they’re running through sheets of rain?), but I got to buy a bag of Icelandic rice and little things like grocery shopping in other countries excite me, though not quite as much as sunlight at 1am, obviously.
The half marathon course was a larger loop encircling the eastern part of Reykjavik, crossing over lakes and the Grafarholtsvöllur golf course, lupines and waterfalls lining the course. It was, apparently, absolutely stunning. My injuries have prevented me from seeing some incredibly gorgeous race courses, and I am sick of my body’s games. This is just an excuse to return to Reykjavik for a third time and do the Midnight Sun Run right.
After the race
Following the race, all finishers were encouraged to dip into the Laugardalslaug Geothermal Pool, one of Reykjavik’s many public pools just around the corner from the finish line, FOR FREE. People started finishing around 9:30 or so and were able to stay in the pool until 1am. I forewent the experience because I thought if my body got any wetter my skin would shrivel right off, but I did head to the famed Blue Lagoon the next day for literally five hours of face masks and beers and bliss. The next day was sunny and almost pleasant temperature-wise, and apparently cold temperatures and being in close proximity to the North Pole are not enough to keep you from getting a ridiculous sunburn from your obnoxiously loud hot pink one piece.
I appreciated my travel companions very much, and the gesture of offering to take a photo of me for my mom at the Blue Lagoon was touching, but there is nothing I can do with this picture besides post it to Twitter with a somewhat amusing, self-degrading caption.
Prices
As an American runner, I was floored at how reasonable the prices were for my first race abroad. Early bird prices for the 5k were 2400 ISK, or $22, with a medal ($18 without), and for the half marathon were 3900 ISK, or $37, with a medal ($32 without). Good luck finding a half marathon in a major US city for any less than $50. Reykjavik is where it’s at.
The race price unfortunately did not include a premium, but it did include timing and a bib number, Powerade and water at aid stations and at the finish line, free entry to the Laugardalslaug baths and pool, and a cute little medal if you opt into one. Paying extra for a finisher’s medal is something to which I am not generally accustomed, but the $4-5 extra was more than worth it for me.
It is no secret that Iceland has gotten incredibly touristy in the wake of social media and stopover promotions from European airlines. Most people I know these days have been to Iceland at least once, or are dying to go soon. I love Iceland. It is one of the few countries I have been to multiple times, its quirky uniqueness appealing to me, and there is a sense of easy-going gaiety there that makes it an incredibly pleasant place to be.
It only seemed right, as my first time traveling solo was in Iceland, that my first race abroad should be in Iceland, too. This race went off without a hitch, and drew racers from all over Europe and all over the world; an exhilarating juxtaposition to the hundreds of races I’ve run right in my hometown. I would 100% recommend this race to anyone from anywhere. I FREAKING love running, and I am so happy to be back.
