Race Day. Saturday Aug. 19th was race day. My first 10Km race; my first real race period. I slept terrible the night before and woke up feeling a bit negative. I found out that the half-marathon race started only 20 minutes after the 10Km. The half is the most popular race consisting of thousands of people. Basically this meant that a gazillion fast people were going to pass me, yay? I have anxiety in general, and this was not helping. I was worried how my knee was going to hold up due to my injury and how my lungs were going to hold up due to my lack of jogging.




Reykjavik Marathon start line. A record number of runners took part as 10192 runners took to the streets of Reykjavík.



When we arrived at the start line the atmosphere was quite good. There was a lot of energy in the air. People excited, people scared. Loud icelandic music playing in the background. The first race to start was the ´charity start;´ this was just for Team Diabetes participants who thought they were going to take more than 5 hours in any race. There were about 20 people in all, mostly walkers and I felt very proud of them for the long journey they were about to take. Walking a marathon - what an accomplishment! I felt teary eyed when the gun went and off they went. It was to be another two hours until my race began.

At 9:40am, 2200 people and I crowd behind the start line. I position myself in the back; don´t want to be swept up in the madness. The countdown,in icelandic, the gun and we´re off. Less dramatic than I figured. I didn´t actually cross the start line for another 3 minutes. lol Although I hear that in actual major races it can take up to 30 minutes! I start the run out good. I walk along with a fellow Team Diabetes walker (in backless shoes nonetheless) until the pack thins out a bit and then I start to run. I catch up to another Team D (we´re quite easy to spot in our colourful singlets) and we keep at the same pace together. I´m moved by the spectators. The beginning of the race is through a residential area and there are locals infront of their houses cheering us on. I especially loved the group of about 15 or so with pots and pans and the nice man playing the acordian on his balconey! The whole "glamour" of racing is not what would ever bring me back to race again. It is these spectators and the energy in the air.

It is at about the 2Km mark when it happens; my ankle is starting to hurt. Oh no. I continue on for about another 3Km like this until ´mind over matter´is just not worth it anymore and I decide to walk the rest, or rather limp the rest. Well that sucks, I was actually making decent time. My team D buddy continued on without me, for well obvious reasons. It´s about this time when the hoards of half-marathon participants stream past me. Quite overwhelming considering we were on a trail that was maybe 4 people wide. I decided to ignore them, keep an eye out for some Canadians to cheer on and admire the scenery. (This part of the race took me along the coast around a peninsula - very pretty) When I reach the 9Km mark I decide the hell with it and very slowly jog the last Km to the finish. I come in at 1hour 29mins. and get my medal (not real gold sadly). The race is over. I felt kind of sad in a way. My Team Diabetes experience was almost over. At the same time I was happy the race was over and I was happy for all the people I met who accomplished their goals.





Taylor coming into the finish line. Yay me!








Patty, Jaime and me at the finish line with our medals






As I look back now, as much as don´t enjoy this sport, I would like to give it another shot. I had a goal of running a 10Km race to completion and I did that. Now I want to run a 10Km race and actually run the whole thing (on a 10/1 run/walk ratio anyways). Maybe I will learn to actually like running, although apparently that will take even more than running a 10km race in Iceland to do it. LOL