Wow, life is amazing. Seems like I was just thinking Iceland, who would want to go run in Iceland that might be CHILLY!
I am a fortunate man. If I were to write a list of the things I was grateful to have in my life I would probably not get to the actual blog for quite sometime. I must start off by saying how great it is to run for such a great organization like Runwell and even better at a Racing the Planet event. If you have ever considered a stage race RTP is the way to go!
Iceland was never on my radar as a destination but I guess that is one of the reasons it makes it such a fantastic place to visit and a running visit allows for a detailed view of the country that most others will never see. Speaking of seeing things, any pictures I post will be from other sources as my camera was disabled from the start of the trip and I did not get a single picture.
Flying to Iceland was so much better than flying to Egypt. The flights were shorter and less crowded. I met up with Veronica in Seattle and the rest of my Runwell teammates in Reykjavic. Although we did not run as an official team, we all wore the Runwell kit and in my book that made us a team. This made for a good trip to the hotel as we talked and got to know each other a bit and decided to go out to breakfast together prior to hotel check-in. Unlike Egypt I was able to stroll around Reykjavic for most of the day finding places to grab food for the pre-race meal at camp the next day. Lets just say this, Iceland has really good yogurt! Back to the hotel. I was able to have early gear check, all good, nothing missing. I even had a few extra items I was able to pass along to some others that did not get their baggage in time for the race. All the while meeting people or saying hello to folks I ran with in Egypt.
Saturday was course briefing, lunch, and a bus ride to camp.
We started off with a major change in where we were going to sleep. Camp 1 was too windy and cold for us to go to so they switched us to what I would consider an Icelandic version of a KOA. Race day, too windy and too cold to take us out on the original route they had planned. It's a good thing, I really did not want to wade through waist high glacial melt on the first day of a 250k race! What we ended up doing was running the same road we drove out on the day before. OMG, I hate the sound of 200 people bitching, "this is boring, If I wanted to run roads I'd stay at home", blah blah blah. For me, this is the bane of stage racing. You get to not only hear the bitching and sniveling but you get to see those same folks day after day. The race directors have our safety in mind first and the lovely course had to come in second.
Camp 2 was on what I would call a knoll. And it was windy as all get out. The bonus was that there
was a mountaineering shack where they set up the hot water and cyber tent. It was hot and cramped but really nice to get out of the wind for a bit. Not a bad night's sleep. As for the wind, I will say it helped in drying out the day's clothes. Another restless night with the wind howling and flapping the canvas tent and noise emanating from other tent mates (and I'm not talking about not snoring). We headed down the road we came up on the day before which was a little unsettling because it was windy and we had already run it. We had spectacular views and a ton of wind. One of my favorite quotes of the day was after slogging through wind and a short but incredibly steep climb a volunteer said to me. "Go up a 100 yards, turn and it will get a little windy" WTF? GET WINDY? and so it did, 60 mph right in the kisser! Oh wait, this wind was coming right off a glacier. A few miles of that, down a sharp and steep road to the power lines. We followed these power lines for about 5 or 6 miles to the awaiting busses. This was unexpected. But the weather being what it was they moved our camp to a farm a few miles away. This was fantastic! The farmer cleared out his barn and we could get out of the wind and actually socialize while we ate.
Off to camp 3. Today was the prettiest day so far. The sun came out and I was having wonderful day running. We had another day of roads but let me explain the difference between roads here and roads
in Iceland. We have a shitload of pavement here and fires roads that are mostly smooth and a bit rocky. Iceland on the other hand is sparsely paved or paved with rock. A large portion of today's road was baseball and softball sized rocks dumped out of a truck and smoothed out. The entire surface was ROCK! This made running somewhat difficult. But I decided it was easier to run over the rocks than through them. This worked well for me until the steep ass downhills. This is where I became a little worried, thinking "shit, what if I need to stop?" The picture of trying to come to a complete stop on what amounted to running on ball bearings did not look good. So rather than worry, I ran faster! This allowed me to catch and pass several people. As I came down to the last 300 or so yards a German fellow saw me coming and wasn't gonna let me pass and the race was on! We were in an all out sprint. I couldn't muster the power for that last pass and crossed the line seconds after him to be greeted with huge smiles as we high fived each other and laughed with the joy of the race. A much different feeling than the slogging feeling we have endured the last couple of sunless days.
Camp 4 will be the scenic run. We are to run through the Lava Tube. In my mind, this will be a smooth fast lava tunnel. Well it wasn't. It's barely 2k from the start and folks are sprinting like hell to get there. It's not a road run either, we are hopping from spongy moss covered rock to rock trying hard not to sprain an ankle. We get to the cave and have to remove our packs. Well this is a giant pain in the ass for me because of my hoopty strapping system for my chest pack. I came to the realization that once the pack was on in the morning, it was staying on! Have I mentioned that a good portion of your down time is spent in a queue? A queue for hot water, a queue for internet and a queue for the toilets. One of my tent mates asked why Des and I got up so early and I replied it was easier to get into the bathroom. This queue for the cave pissed me off a bit. We were not allowed to pass in the cave. This made me dig into my patience reserve. I wanted to keep moving and get out to run and the guy in front of me wanted to stop, fumble and take pictures. Once out I had to strap the pack back on and get moving. This is where I saw Lee run like a bat out of hell. I heard she was afraid of small spaces and upon exiting the cave, she pinned it and never looked back! I took today rather easy because we still had the long march ahead of us. Lucky for me I got to camp right before the rain started to fall. This would have been one of the more scenic camps had we not had to huddle in our tent or the "river cafe." I wish I could say that the wind had died down considering it was raining and all. As we settled in our tents for the evening the volunteers came to tell us not to touch the walls of the tent, this would lead to leaks. Ugh, my spot for the entire week was on the windward side of the tent that night. I had to lay super still while the wall of the tent bowed in over my head. Yet another restless night.
The long march. After a somewhat blustery course briefing they loaded us into busses for a 100 yd trip over the river. Getting 250 people ready and across a small river for the long march is much like herding cats. I am all too punctual some days. So this meant standing around freezing my ass off for a half an hour or better. The run was brutal, some wonderful single track leading to the beach. The beach was WINDY really WIND. After the beach came the lava cliffs. The lava cliffs were slippery and well supervised by the Icelandic search and rescue. Once past the cliffs it was wind, wind and more wind. I was not disappointed that the "Long March" was only 65k or so. I was tired. Crap, I'm tired right now! I am always a bit surprised when I am running as to how much time I spend running alone. I had been doing well all week and wanted to keep my position. I had been thinking I would place somewhere in the 60's. But noticed at the start I could get into the 50's and really wanted to get there. My focus was not so much to pass people but moreover not get passed. I did okay. I finished the Long March in 8:50 by my watch. It was so crappy out at the finish line we quickly boarded a bus to the gymnasium Racing the Planet arranged for us to stay in.
The Gym was a wonderful respite from the elements and, wait for it..................a SHOWER!!!!!!!
We spent Thursday night and Friday out of the rain. Although some of the competitors (those that brought cash) chose to bend the rules and hit the local pizza place and bakery. It was kinda funny that it wasn't till the evening briefing they mentioned assessed time penalties for anyone seen purchasing food and immediate disqualification for anyone bringing booze back into the gym. I'm pretty sure it was an empty threat. I have yet to see any handed out. Crap, I would have rolled the dice had I brought my wallet.
Saturday we packed up and got on the busses for the last 10k. It was comical because they opted not to set up the start line banner. So the bus drivers spent 45 minutes looking for pink flags and our caravan of busses got lost! Finally they found the flags, pulled over and 250 people jumped out to pee. We gathered at the makeshift start and BANG! We were off. I was in good position and didn't want to loose any spots so I pinned it knocking out the last 9k relatively fast. We finished at the Blue lagoon with hot soup and sodas (beer as well). Imagine 250 stinky, sweaty and wet runners invading your soak? After a about an hour soaking in the most amazing hot spring, we were off to the hotel. Another shower and I had a nice walk downtown to procure a snack. Pringles and a coke never tasted so good. Back for the awards banquet. Tent 16 decided to sit together and I made sure to snag a table right next to the door. It's one of my quick getaway habits that worked out well because it put us in the front of the BUFFET LINE. Woo Hoo! I felt for the chefs, I don't think they were prepared for the voracious onslaught of hungry runners about to decimate their lovely buffet. Within 45 min minutes there were people trolling the empty tables ready to eat the any thing left that looked edible.
To sum it up and a few sentences. I am truly grateful to have been allowed to represent Runwell yet again in a stage race. I was able to meet and run with so many great folks especially my Runwell compadres. And huge amount of respect goes out to the Racing the Planet crew and volunteers that braved the elements making sure we had a great camp to come back to at the end of every day.
