Lake Myvatn Marathon

Walk the Walkers conquer the Lake Myvatn Marathon!

On Thursday 21st June 2007, 29 Walk the Walkers set of on an adventure. Some came with friends and some came alone but the purpose of their journey was to come together as a team to not only raise vital money and awareness by power walking the Myvatn Marathon in Iceland, but to also reach personal goals…and hopefully have a lot of fun along the way!

The first stop was the famous Blue Lagoon, a natural hot water spa bath founded on a unique source of geothermal seawater and known for its wonderful effects on the skin. It certainly worked wonders for us as we stopped off in the middle of our journey between London and Lake Myvatn. After we had covered our bodies in the white silica supposedly very good for the skin, followed by a delicious and relaxing soak in the warm waters… we continued our journey to one of the most beautiful places in Iceland.

Lake Myvatn is situated in the north eastern part of Iceland; the entire landscape has been formed by glacial and volcanic activity from the last Ice Age. Our Hotel was on the shores of the lake and surrounded by the most stunning scenery I have ever seen. But perhaps the thing that excited me most was the 24 hours of light…I just never seemed to feel tired or have the feeling that I wanted to go to bed, and a sense of time was completely lost, midnight could have been midday, how the Icelanders cope I have no idea, I think perhaps they hibernate in winter when the reverse happens and they have 18 hours of darkness a day!

After spending a day acclimatising and visiting the wonders of the Lake Myvatn area the dramatic volcanic mud pools and seeing how bread is baked in the ground and very excitingly spotting Hump Back and Minke whales. We finally arrived at our BIG day…

What is very special about this Marathon is that Walk the Walk make up almost 50% of the entire field as apart from our team there are only about 40 other marathon runners taking part. I came across it by accident about 5 years ago and since then it has become one of our favourite marathons. The small number of participants is one of the reasons that make it so unique and wonderful, but also the reason that makes it so challenging. As you face the 26.2 miles and whatever the day brings, each walker has to be very self motivated to keep going without the thousands of supporters that would be found along the streets at a normal marathon.

Our day started out as very windy but with a huge brilliant blue sky, so bras and weather protectors to keep out the wind were the order of the day. In less time than it took our walkers to walk a couple of miles, the cold wind had bought the temperature down to just 3°c.

Despite the chilling wind everybody kept going. Roger (who came along with his partner) and I were the support crew. As the team began to split up as they battled with walking head on into the wind, we patrolled the route handing out clothing as it was needed, sadly the glorious bras had to go under wraps on this day, goody bags with nibbles and the most welcome of all …soup and all the encouragement we could give!

Liz triumphantly crossed the finish line at 6 hours 15 seconds and our 3 last walkers Michelle (wrapped in a welsh flag), Judith and Sarah crossed the line still smiling at 8 hours 25.20 with everybody else in between. The fears and apprehension that had been discussed at the tactic talk on the previous night had been conquered and even though I think it was perhaps the toughest marathon conditions I have known, each one of them found reserves of energy and determination to reach their goal albeit with a few battle scars

As is the way in Iceland with everybody on board relieved and exhausted we headed straight to the nearest nature bath to let the healing waters work their wonders on some very tired and aching muscles. The next day was wonderfully warm with no wind!! The midges were out in force but everybody just sat back and enjoyed a day of travelling around this stunning part of the world …wearing a medal of course!

I would like to thank Liz, Colette, Olga, Kim, Sharon, Catherine, Roena, Carolyn, Nicola, Janet, Dominique, Annie, Georgie, Tania, Roma, Paula, Mel, Jo, Kate, Sarah, Annie, Rosie, Sarah, Michelle, Judith and Roger for being such a fantastic team. Whilst on Thursday many of you did not know each other, but by Monday we had all made new friends….and I would like to add, that whilst many of them said ‘never again’ as they crossed the finish line….within hours the conversation turned to thoughts of what the next Walk the Walk challenge could be!