Midnight Sun Half Marathon

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What better place to spend the longest day of the year than somewhere where the sun doesn't actually set?!! Destination Tromso - 72 degrees north of the equator, somewhere amongst the fjords of Norway in the arctic circle, still with snow capped mountains, glaciers and evening temperatures of a balmy 5 degrees is a rather large city (given the living environment), host to the midnight sun marathon. Why not???

I can list a few reasons why not - cold, far away, expensive, 21.1kms - but then the reasons for are much greater than against - Arctic circle! Fjords! Midnight sun! Quality time with great friends!

We got off to a bit of a rough start, with 4 of 6 of us missing our already expensive flights, requiring re-booking. However, we made up for the expenses with smuggling in our own spaghetti and tuna into the country (yes, we really are students - and yes, it really is that expensive in Norway)!!

We did a bit of site seeing on the day of the marathod - crazy marching bands everywhere, the polar museum and had a good pasta feed. Got in the spirit of the race by listening to 'put your hands up for detroit' for 3 solid hours on repeat... Gijs actually ran the full marathon with this song on repeat! We all ran the race in record breaking time (well, beating our own records or goals that is) and had a good celebration after - which made the next day rather rough. Some of us went on a fjord tour, some of us decided to watch the Swedish Princess's wedding on the cabin flat screen 😊

It was a perfect trip, despite the cold and expenses, we all had an experience we won't soon forget!

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Photos

Warm up
Warming our muscles with the inaugural game of hand-golf.

World Cup Support
Even in Tromso, countrymen were supporting their teams.

Go gang!!
The half marathon team, minutes before starting

Fjord tour
The picture doesn't show that we could barely walk

Fjord tour
typical "Norway red" houses