We were four backpackers, hiking the Laugavegur trek, a 55 km path through the diverse and hostile highlands of Iceland. We though we were the toughest bunch of guys out there until we realized there was an ultra marathon going on at that same path. Hundreds of runners left us in the dust and a great many of them made comments on how slow we were as walkers, I am still not sure if they were being serious or not.