In 1983 two young entrepreneurs working at a travel agency were looking for an opportunity to interest more tourists in visiting Iceland when they came up with the idea of starting an international road race in Reykjavik. A year later the first run was held with 214 participants. These were natives and runners from seven other nations.

Since then the Reykjavik Marathon has been held every year and now attracts around 3500 participants with more than 500 foreign runners taking part mainly in the Marathon and Half Marathon. In 2009 almost 11.500 runners participated in all five distances of the Reykjavik Marathon.

Reykjavik Marathon became a member of AIMS in 1984. AIMS is a member based organization of more than 300 of the world´s leading distance races, from over 85 countries.

World famous runners have participated in our marathon, among those Baldini, Frank Shorter, Hugh Jones, Grete Waitz and Fred Lebow.