2014, 5: Suzuki Midnight Sun Run

I marked the midpoint in my resolutionary year with a run through the middle of the night, the Suzuki Midnight Sun Run, in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Starting at 2200 in the evening, with the sun still in the sky as we were so far north, it was tricky to get pre-race prep right. It mostly involved an enormous eggy breakfast cooked by Matt, hot dogs for lunch and a big blue cheeseburger for dinner; then an impromptu nap and a long wait in the queue to get my race number, munching a banana for a last minute energy boost.

In the Suzuki Midnight Sun Run you can choose between three distances; half marathon, 10 km race and 5 km race. The 10k route starts in the streets and then follows a lovely track, mostly through the Laugardalur Valley, which is a park area, and has great views like the salmon river Ellidaa, Lake Raudavatn, and a golf course. I didn’t see any golfers, or any salmon, but I did see a lot of other runners stopping to take photos of the scenery.

The race was mostly lightly undulating, with a few hills up and down to bridge crossings. One took us across a sort of fortified wooden suspension bridge over the River Ellidaa.

During the race there wasn’t much chat, something I’ve found on lots of my races abroad. British runners tend to be up for a chat, especially those of us at the back of the field that will do anything to distract from the pain. Reykjavik was a fairly quiet affair. In fact, the only people I could hear talking were some American women. Truth be told, I found them a bit irritating at first, then I decided to chat to them and found their story pretty inspiring: They were old friends, having met at university and joined a running club together. Now living in the USA and the UK respectively, they meet in different cities to run races together and talk pretty much constantly the whole way round…!

All in all, it was a beautiful race through the valley in full bloom, and one I’d definitely strongly recommend. Reykjavik is worth a visit in itself, and the race was a great way to see another part of this small city. I even got a PB 10k race time of 1.02 -Matt was waiting for me at the finish with a beer, which just might have given me the edge.

 

And you can see an extremely (un)flattering photo of me actually running, on the official race Flickr page here, https://flic.kr/p/o642Pe