Race medals - what do you do with them?

Peckham

(Obviously I'm talking about the medals for all finishers, rather than any podium finish!)

I've kept my three marathon medals, but discarded anything for half-marathons or other races. They're currently stuffed at the back of my sock drawer.

When I'm finished accumulating these medals I hope to get them mounted/framed.

1) Do you hold onto the medals? Which ones?
2) What do you do with them?

greenplain

I keep them all. I even keep my race number, I just stick them on a post it board in the bed room. Its good for motivation!

shels4ever

greenplain wrote: »

I keep them all. I even keep my race number, I just stick them on a post it board in the bed room. Its good for motivation!

only have my marathon one in the house with me, from 10 years ago, in the folk house there is a box of stuff somewhere wiht stuff i won as a junior.. not too many golds there but one I like

hunnymonster

I keep medals in a box. They get dug out every so often, kinds in particular like playing with them and they bring back memories of good trips around the world.

eliwallach

greenplain wrote: »

I keep them all. I even keep my race number, I just stick them on a post it board in the bed room. Its good for motivation!

I keep all medals in a sock & tie drawer.
I also (like greenplain) keep all of my race numbers stapled to a printout of the race results (with my result highlighted) . They are carefully filed away.
This is for when the running auditors come calling :rolleyes:.

hunnymonster

eliwallach wrote: »

This is for when the running auditors come calling :rolleyes:.

That will be Woddle adjudicating on the 1000 mile challenge :-)

dna_leri

Peckham wrote: »

(Obviously I'm talking about the medals for all finishers, rather than any podium finish!)

I've kept my three marathon medals, but discarded anything for half-marathons or other races. They're currently stuffed at the back of my sock drawer.

When I'm finished accumulating these medals I hope to get them mounted/framed.

1) Do you hold onto the medals? Which ones?
2) What do you do with them?

Medals I won (as a junior) I keep neatly boxed.
Medals I got for finishing I do not value and are scattered about, but then I have never done a marathon.

TheRoadRunner

I have kept a few of my medals from when I was a junior. Got rid of the junk ones a few years ago. Have all my marathon medals and others from races of interest hanging from a nail in the wall of my home office.

helpisontheway

Does anyone get their marathon medals engraved with their race time,finishing position,charity they may have ran for etc?

robinph

I melt them all down and then sell off the precious metals.

Rusty Cogs 08

I'm still wearing them all, crazy fools !!

jeffontour

Medals are in a bag in a drawer somewhere. At comrades they give a medal and a patch, the patch is a much more practical memento.

hunnymonster

lol, least practical momento I ever got was a hammock for winning the arctic circle marathon..... luckily it was before the days of paying for every last ounce on a plane and I managed to get it home. Last i saw it was in my mum's house.

I quite like getting medals though.

Stupid_Private

hunnymonster wrote: »

lol, least practical momento I ever got was a hammock for winning the arctic circle marathon....

I would love to win a hammock. I think I've just found my new goal...

I've only kept my Dublin marathon medals. Everything else was kept initially, and then would have been binned when moving apartments.

--amadeus--

Mine get distributed to teh kids who fight like deamons over whose turn it is to get it, wear them for 10 minutes and then forget about them while they squabble over whatever is left in the goodie bag... Most of them end up hung around the necks of various cuddly toys. I'm not overly sentimental about them - I have the memories and I'm more interested in Rotterdam 09 than Rotterdam 08. That said seeing them does bring back happy (or not!) memories. My Father In Law insisted on having teh first couple engraved but I never really saw the point.

I do like getting T-Shirts though. I train in old race t shirts all the time and it's a good motivator. At the minute I'm racing in my Rotterdam 08 marathon T shirt because it's a performance I was quite pleased with.

hunnymonster

--amadeus-- wrote: »

I do like getting T-Shirts though. I train in old race t shirts all the time and it's a good motivator. At the minute I'm racing in my Rotterdam 08 marathon T shirt because it's a performance I was quite pleased with.

[sweeping generalisation alert]There is a uniquely male game that gets played at marathon expos. A sub-group of the male species always wear their most "boastful" tee-shirt (be it Boston, the Gobi desert, etc) to pick up their race packs and there is the strange game of other men trying to look to see where the tee-shirt is from, without looking like they are interested. [/alert]

--amadeus--

hunnymonster wrote: »

[sweeping generalisation alert]There is a uniquely male game that gets played at marathon expos. A sub-group of the male species always wear their most "boastful" tee-shirt (be it Boston, the Gobi desert, etc) to pick up their race packs and there is the strange game of other men trying to look to see where the tee-shirt is from, without looking like they are interested. [/alert]

I don't have any "boastful" ones

But I will admit that I may be going slightly faster when training in my Dublin "Finishers" t shirt and going past walkers and teh like

MCOS

2 nat champs rowing pots contains all kind of medals and ribbons. The pots are not really shiny anymore but remind me of good times at University and seeing a committed season the whole way through. There were lots of other rowing pots but they are in my fathers attic I think. Everything from Rugby and Judo to recent Marathon medals in the pots. Most medals are just bits of metal but some have sentimental value. There is one beautiful looking medal I got at a tough 4s regatta win in Blessington, I just love the look of it. The 08 Connemarathon one is my hardest earned and toughest lesson learned, I can hardly pick it up without welling up. I don't need to keep them to remember stuff, I just remember when I was a kid finding old medals belonging to my Dad and wondering what it was he did.

Hopefully I'll still be doing it though by the time my son hits his teens and decides to make mince meat of my pbs

ManFromAtlantis

last 2 dub marathon medals hanging on sons bedroom ..... he asked me did i win each time ? !!!!!

Wally Runs

Much like yourselves I have most in a box in the bedroom. However, I do have the marathon medals set in a frame with the finishing photo (or a course photo, if I look too dreadful when crossing the line). They do look well and bring a little smile to my face when I think back on the race. In each one you can see me thinking ‘never again’.

The other medals are pulled out and worn by the kids every now and again. They clank around the house, sounding much like Jimmy Saville and demand jellies for completing their ‘race’.

TFBubendorfer

My kids love using them when they organise a race amongst themselves. The winner gets to pick one. I do insist they they give them back eventually, though.

Having said that, that's only the marathon and ultra medals. I don't care about the other ones, and to be honest don't even see why they give them out at some half-marathons or even 10k. That distance is just not much of a challenge.

cfitz

I like getting medals, but I don't really look after them very well. A lot of them are in a box (that is possibly still in my parents house). Some of the more recent ones could be at the bottom of bags, in glove compartments etc. I never throw them away though - I'm not that cool

They do bring back really good memories on the odd occasion that I look through the box.

I would always have said that finishers medals kind of take the point out of medals unless it's some sort of crazy tough race. And I still would, but yet I'm quite fond of the one I got for finishing the Celtic Universities Cross-Country coz it's the only international race I was ever selected for. (It was only the 'B' team I was on.)

Daithi BC

hunnymonster wrote: »

[sweeping generalisation alert]There is a uniquely male game that gets played at marathon expos. A sub-group of the male species always wear their most "boastful" tee-shirt (be it Boston, the Gobi desert, etc) to pick up their race packs and there is the strange game of other men trying to look to see where the tee-shirt is from, without looking like they are interested. [/alert]

Guilty as charged! I've been racing in Boston 08 gear since April last year . As for my medals - they're all in a box for now until I can find a cheap way of displaying them. The display cases at most marathons are far too expensive.

hunnymonster

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

Having said that, that's only the marathon and ultra medals. I don't care about the other ones, and to be honest don't even see why they give them out at some half-marathons or even 10k. That distance is just not much of a challenge.

we all have different goalposts. As I've said many times before, the one and only 400m I've ever raced was much harder than any ultramarathon I've ever done.

HardyEustace

--amadeus-- wrote: »

I do like getting T-Shirts though. I train in old race t shirts all the time and it's a good motivator. At the minute I'm racing in my Rotterdam 08 marathon T shirt because it's a performance I was quite pleased with.

As long as the t-shirts fit. The amount of over-large t-shirts I've received at various races is a source of annoyance. People who order a medium or large size and then nick all the small ones so you're left with a t-shirt where the arm holes are practically at waist level and they're too big even for jammies.... GGRRRR! :mad:

I mean most runners are relatively trim people, why, why, why insist on ordering gargantuan t-shirts. Some of the shirts are really nice, but just too big to wear. I loved the Mullaghmore Tri shirt but it was way too big for me and that was a small size. Either XS or proper sizing people, please.

plodder

I like my DCM marathon medals, also the special one that we got for the Dublin Port tunnel run. That was a one-off, and a nice souvenir. But I'd rather get a decent technical shirt instead of a medal, for anything else (thinking of the Bupa run mainly)

chinguetti

The medals and plaques i won as a young fella are at home somewhere with the mother while any i've got in the last year are on the wall as a sign of a job well done whatever the time or distance

GoHardOrGoHome

helpisontheway wrote: »

Does anyone get their marathon medals engraved with their race time,finishing position,charity they may have ran for etc?

I haven't yet but I will at some point. I have a friend who has his medal framed along with two pictures. It looks great. It would have to be a fairly special event though e.g. first marathon, first ultra, first half marathon etc. If it's your 12th half marathon then I don't think it warrants special attention.

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

I'm still wearing them all, crazy fools !!

Hilarious. I have a very funny image in my mind of Rusty Cogs Baracus running down the road with all his medals and chains swinging around.

--amadeus-- wrote: »

I do like getting T-Shirts though. I train in old race t shirts all the time and it's a good motivator. At the minute I'm racing in my Rotterdam 08 marathon T shirt because it's a performance I was quite pleased with.

+1. Love collecting technical t-shirts.

hunnymonster wrote: »

[sweeping generalisation alert]There is a uniquely male game that gets played at marathon expos. A sub-group of the male species always wear their most "boastful" tee-shirt (be it Boston, the Gobi desert, etc) to pick up their race packs and there is the strange game of other men trying to look to see where the tee-shirt is from, without looking like they are interested. [/alert]

Hunnymonster! How dare you! I never do this...
"oh this ol' t-shirt? oh, they just gave it out free if you defeated the demons of agony and fatigue, swimming for an hour against currents and probably the odd deep sea monster, conquered two murderous mountain passes and vicious gusts during a 50 mile cycle and then topped it off by running a half marathon in Kenmare"

Fast_Mover

I've my medals in a wooden box with my name carved on the front. (present from my aunt)
Before they went in there/after I came home from competition, I'd hang them off the lamp of the sacred heart in the kitchen! Most convenient place!

My trophies are kept in boxes in the attic.

--amadeus--

HardyEustace wrote: »

As long as the t-shirts fit. The amount of over-large t-shirts I've received at various races is a source of annoyance. People who order a medium or large size and then nick all the small ones so you're left with a t-shirt where the arm holes are practically at waist level and they're too big even for jammies.... GGRRRR! :mad:

I mean most runners are relatively trim people, why, why, why insist on ordering gargantuan t-shirts. Some of the shirts are really nice, but just too big to wear. I loved the Mullaghmore Tri shirt but it was way too big for me and that was a small size. Either XS or proper sizing people, please.

Really?

Of course being the rippling muscle bound hunk that I am I rarely have this problem...

911sc

ManFromAtlantis wrote: »

last 2 dub marathon medals hanging on sons bedroom ..... he asked me did i win each time ? !!!!!

And I am sure you did....so did I. We better ensure our kids never meet or we are in trouble:)

Funkyzeit

What are these "Medal" things you speak of ?

PainIsTemporary

Personally don't have any value on partication medals that I've won got and discard them. Sorry!

Like some others here hold on to race numbers of races where have performed well, sign and date them including race details on back. Use them for inspiration for the next race.

When taking [a ball breaker of an] ice bath the night before a big race I hang the medal from my best race up on the wall facing me and use it for inspiration. Gets me though the pain barrier and gets me psyched for the race the next day. Make's pain of ice-bath more tolerable and tell myself if I can tolerate pain of ice bath the pain I'll go through in race will be piece of cake. Psychotic stuff ... great feeling thou

gaf1983

I have a mini "Shaq Attack" basketball ring in my bedroom, I just hang them off that.

MCOS

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Really?

Of course being the rippling muscle bound hunk that I am I rarely have this problem...

So --adonis-- --amadeus--, do you think the rippling muscle mass will hinder your sub 3 attempt?!

--amadeus--

MCOS wrote: »

So --adonis-- --amadeus--, do you think the rippling muscle mass will hinder your sub 3 attempt?!

Well 95% of it is between my ears so I should be fine...

HardyEustace

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Well 95% of it is between my ears so I should be fine...

Does that mean that your brain mass is nestling between something else....;)

--amadeus--

HardyEustace wrote: »

Does that mean that your brain mass is nestling between something else....;)

Funny enough you aren't the first person to accuse me of having a brain somewhere other than my head...

Slogger Jogger

For years I had them accumulated in a drawer and rarely looked at. But as part of my motivation for Rotterdam I'd put my marathon medals on display as its something I'm proud of, even if my times are moderate. Any other medals for half marathons or 10ks are still forgotten in the drawer though. The medals for Dublin are ok in their own right until you see a medal for the likes of Paris which is fab.

What medal is your fav?

911sc

Slogger Jogger wrote: »

The medals for Dublin are ok in their own right until you see a medal for the likes of Paris which is fab.

I thought the Dublin one were very nice. Now looking forward to get the Paris one in April.
Though i'll be running Paris on my own as friend has decided to go for 2h50 while we registered for 4h!! I may change my target time to 3h45 at registration, but that's it for me.

kingQuez

My one and only medal (from the DM just gone) is in my sock drawer Love the finisher t shirt though; when I wear it on an occasional long run I can't help but smile and remember how brilliant I felt for the entire week after finishing.

jeffontour

Digging up an old thread here!

I moved earlier in the year and as a result have looked in some of the boxes of junk I took from one attic and placed in another. I came across various bags of medals and thought they might make reasonable crimbo tree decorations.

I think silly season is probably the only time I'd have them out on display though!

Ceepo

I pondered this same question recently,
I suppose different medals mean different things to people.
Would just to throw a few questions out there.

Would you treat a podium medal different to a medal for taking part? If so why?

Does an individual medal trump a team medal?

As this is and old thread I'm sure some rooms are wallpapered with race numbers by now, lol

RacoonQueen

My all-Ireland basketball final medal (though we lost) is far and away the most important medal in my collection (the only one I actually care about). Means way more than even the ultra ones, so I'd hazard a guess that an individual medal is better than the one everyone gets.

I used to hang them on hooks on my bookshelf but got bored of them and threw them in a shoebox with my prized basketball medal.

Gambas

reminds me of this

http://thescore.thejournal.ie/lewis-moody-england-world-cup-medal-sainsburys-bag-614125-Sep2012/

Lewis Moody: I kept my World Cup winners’ medal in a Sainsburys bag

“It’s in a bag somewhere,” he said. “All of my medals are with my mum until a while ago. I couldn’t actually remember where any of them where.”
Moody won seven English Premiership titles with Leicester as well as three Anglo-Welsh Cups and two Heineken Cups. He won two Six Nations with England as well as the World Cup in 2003, for which he earned another medal – an MBE.
“It’s strange isn’t it?”, he reflected. “I’ve been very lucky to have a successful career but what do you do with all those bits and pieces of memorabilia - do you put them on a wall? I don’t know.

robinph

Having since won some national medals, a silver and bronze in the old blokes category, I'm much prouder of them than any of the ones that everyone got. Even though I only got them by being the slowest member of our team of old blokes.

The Dublin '10 medal possibly still tops them though in terms of meaning as that was my only sub 3 so far. But I plan on fixing that next year.

Cabaal

Have some of mine hung in my office on the side of a picture frame, certainly not a proper display or anything :pac:

I find medals funny, I like them but at the same time I've done many a face that gives none and I'm not too pushed.

I was reading the DCM facebook page the other day and the amount of people complaining about not getting a medal......if your running DCM for a medal imho your a fool, its all the experience and memory's

RacoonQueen

Where DCM is concerned, the people who didn't get medals were complete back of the packers. They were people who either walked or walk/ran very slowly and the medal was an achievement for them. I'd have been peeved if I didn't get a medal in my first DCM because it was a huge leap for me. That medal means nothing now but I'm pretty sure at the time I was pretty proud of it.

Jogathon

For my first marathon, a friend did a really nice pencil sketch of me running and she framed it. I have two medals on either side of it beside the phone in my parent's hall. It's great to pass by and see it. My other medals I have hidden in a drawer.

QandA

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

Having said that, that's only the marathon and ultra medals. I don't care about the other ones, and to be honest don't even see why they give them out at some half-marathons or even 10k. That distance is just not much of a challenge.

What a silly thing to say...

Krusty_Clown

QandA wrote: »

What a silly thing to say...

Yes, what were you thinking Thomas? Three and a half years ago.....