Glenn Weinstein's Staging Area

I signed up for the Reykjavik in an (ultimately doomed) last-ditch attempt to get a BQ (Boston Marathon Qualifier) for 2026. I missed that goal, but still ran a great race in what turned into a wonderful family vacation.

I typically run the Abbott World Marathon Majors (9 of my 10 prior marathons), so Reykjavik was a welcome change for #11. It’s a small race in a charming city with excellent local support.

Let’s start with registration. As another reviewer noted, the website is… a bit clunky. There’s some kind of distinction between an “Elite/Competition” entry and a “General registration” entry, but I was never quite above to figure out what the distinction was. I ensured mine was “Elite/Competition” so my time would count towards a BQ (not sure if that was necessary – better safe than sorry?), and I think the intention was for this group to start first, but as far as I could tell, everyone just started together in one giant group. There were colored flags to mark “corrals” by expected pace, but these seem to have been entirely ignored by everyone. In the end, the results showed 521 “Elite/Competition” finishers and 806 “General registration” finishers, for a total of 1,327 finishers for the full 26.2 mile marathon. (The half-marathon, which starts together with the full marathon, had a total of 3,667 finishers.)

We made this a family trip (wife, 2 adult daughters, 1 son-in-law) and stayed at the Reykjavik Residence Hotel and the Sand Hotel. I headed to the expo on Friday (the day before the race) which was a short ride by public bus (super-easy; tap-to-pay). The bib pickup was well-organized (if a bit crowded at 3:30pm Friday) and the expo hall itself was packed with great vendors. The bib comes with a small red bag that you can use for bag drop on race day.

I made the short walk Saturday morning (about 55° F) to the start area, dropped my bag, and took my place in the corral at about 8:20am for an 8:30am start. As I noted above, everyone seemed to ignore the colored pace flags and just packed in. At 8:30… nothing happened. 🙂 If there was a separate “Elite/Competition” start, I totally missed it. Finally at 8:36am, the mayor of Reykjavik, who was standing on top of the arch at the start line, made some brief remarks, counted down to one, and we runners started moving.

The first 12 miles of the race are full and half marathoners together (the 10k had a later start), and felt like a typical if small-scale marathon, with great spectator support, live bands, music, and the like as we weaved around the city. This part of the course seemed relatively flat but rather windy. I saw my family twice in these first 12 miles.

At mile 12, full marathoners turned left – and it felt like very few people turned left 🙂 Suddenly I was transported from “public marathon” to what almost felt like a personal training run, heading up bike paths, along the sides of roads, through apartment parking lots, over pedestrian bridges, transiting public parks, and the like. I often had just 2 or 3 runners in sight ahead of me – sometimes none – and had to be fairly careful to watch for “turn left” or “turn right” signs to stay on the course. (Race marshal volunteers were posted fairly consistently throughout to avoid any wrong turns.) This 2nd part of the race felt more hilly – no one huge hill, but a steady succession of uphills & downhills – and again, noticeably windy. Fortunately, the rain held off, and with 55° and cloudy skies, conditions felt perfect (other than the wind & hills of course).

I finally saw my family again around mile 25.5, after we’d re-entered the city, survived a few more hills around miles 21-24, and headed for the home stretch. The course remained fairly devoid of spectators except scattered locals until literally the final 300 yards or so, with the finish line in sight.

After crossing the finish line and receiving my medal, I entered the snack / recovery area, which was really excellent – tons of apple slices, orange slices, rolls, chocolate bars, water and drinks, pretzels, etc. Probably the best post-marathon food spread I’ve ever seen! It was a bit tricky to navigate out of the recovery area and head back towards the bag drop, but eventually I escaped the fencing and reunited with my family.

I was very impressed at how quickly the race results were available online (a few hours at most) and the race photos arrived on Monday morning (and were really good & thorough).

We spent Sunday & Monday touring Iceland (rented a car and drove the golden circle route, Blue Lagoon & Hvammsvik hot springs, puffin jetski tour!). We also did a walking folklore tour on Friday that was fun, and we checked out the museums & concert as part of Reykjavik Culture Night on Saturday after the marathon. Really a fantastic vacation in a magical place with warm, friendly people.

THANK YOU to everyone involved in putting on the Reykjavik Marathon. Overall, it’s a well-organized event that welcomes non-locals and should be on any adventuring marathoner’s race list.

A few other race notes –

* There are relatively few mile / km markers on the course. I recall seeing 5km and 10km, but marking was inconsistent after that. The splits shown on the results page are non-standard (16.4km, 24.5km, 27.4km, 29.9km, 32km, 38km) so you won’t be able to compare to other marathon splits by official chip times.

* It may have been my imagination, but water / drink stops seemed sparse in the 2nd half of the race. I was glad I carried my own drink flask.

* My chip time matched my Garmin time exactly, and my Garmin recorded 26.52 miles.