The Reykjavik Marathon is getting bigger every year. It is also getting more and more international as its reputation grows.
In the last two years there has been a 63% increase in foreign participation in the marathon distance.
In 2016 there were 1,307 marathon finishers. Thereof, 146 came from Iceland but 1,161 or 89% from other parts of the world.
It was surprising to see that Icelandic participation in the full marathon has decreased slightly in the last couple of years. However, the total number of runners in the full marathon has grown a lot as there has been a 63% increase of foreigners in the marathon distance from 2014.
In the marathon distance 323 runners came from the United states, a 53 % increase from last year. The second most participants came from the UK with Icelanders third, same as last year. Germany and Canada have the fourth and fifth most marathon runners.
All distances had more runners taking part in 2016 than the year before. The marathon is the fastest growing distance with 23% more participants than in 2015 and the half marathon grew by 17% from the previous year.
The growth in the half marathon is driven by visitors from abroad but for the first time there were more foreigners than Icelanders taking part in that distance. However, one of the 1,102 Icelandic runners in the half marathon was Gudni Th. Johannesson, the newly elected president of Iceland. He ran side by side with other runners and finished in a very good time of 1:42:43!
The graph below shows breakdown by country for the three longest distances at the Reykjavik Marathon (marathon, half marathon and 10K).
