Two wins in a row! I can scarcely believe it myself. The first was last month’s Busan 70.3 in South Korea, and the latest was Challenge Iceland last weekend. One of my favorite things about winning a race is that my nutrition sponsor First Endurance puts up a race report on their blog – here’s Iceland (and since I never posted about it, here’s South Korea as well). So now I just get to talk about how awesome my vacation in Iceland was!
Amazing pictures taken by race photographer Arnold Bjornsson. Lots of people commenting that the race looks very cold, but the coldest race I’ve done this year is still St. George (after the rain started). Iceland was warm in comparison with 60F water and air.
Other worldly scenery on the bike course.
Just another rainy Sunday run, this time around glacial carved mountains.
Post-race deliciousness from my favorite restaurant in Reykjavik, Glo. That’s a homemade Snicker’s bar.
Our tourist crew the day after the race. Heather Wurtele on camera (with TWO lenses!), Nick Saunders Instagram expert and terrifying driver, Tim “who wants to hike to the top of that mountain?” Don, Brad Brown demonstrating what we should actually be looking at in this picture, and Justin Metzler who hasn’t stopped smiling since the race ended.
Iceland’s Golden Circle only took us eight hours to complete. Top left – the meeting of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates; top right – the Strokkur geysir; bottom left – Gulfoss waterfall; bottom right – an extinct volcano crater.
The whole crew at Blue Lagoon under the midnight twilight. It’s just runoff from a geothermal powerplant turned into a tourist attraction.
Heather and I are Challenge Nordic champions with viking hat trophies to look the part.
Last but not least I want to say thank you to the Challenge Iceland race organizers. Petur, Vidar, Ranna, Einar, and the whole crew put on a race more than worthy of the beautiful backdrop we got to race in. Put it on your race calendars for next year, this is the new definition of a bucket-list race!
