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Runners, Where do you put all of your running medals?
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Decent medals get hung on the handle of a unit in the living room, crap medals get hung over the mirror in the spare room. Cotton race tees generally get thrown out or given to MiL to wear to her keep fit classes as they're always too big for me... Technical race tees get used for training.
I hang all my medals in the hall in our house. Becomes a brilliant discussion point for guests. Often peole even recognise their local race. About 30 now so thinking of rationalising them!
All of mine are hanging on the corner of my desk at home where the computer is.
MrGFB's are hanging around the neck of Bert - our full size skeleton in our clinic.
Mine are draped randomly around the house ...
But why do runners need or want medals? I taken part in lots of different sports, normally only with medals or cups for the winners and top placings. In no other sport have I seen or got a medal for 'taking part'.
What's different about runners or running events that means a 'medal' is almost compulsory?
True - most French races give you a technical t-shirt these days. And they often have different styles for men and women.
British race organisers should follow suit, and they could improve the designs, too.
I still have the t-shirt from my first ever race - in 1999. It's a good design. It's getting a bit thin now, though.
Some are starting to give tech tees now. From memory I got at least two last year.
As I'm a tight-fisted northerner I'd rather have no memento/t shirt and cheaper entry fees though.
Not used this company myself, but I know a couple of people who have
http://www.medal-frames.com/
KK, I have played 5 a side, mainly for training, but I was comparing to sports trained for and taken seriously & competitively over reasonable periods of time (eg) hockey, squash, tennis, some of which I put far more effort and training into than running (I took up running to keep fit for hockey). Some of which (in my view) are tougher on the body - since as I get older, running is the one I can still do at a reasonable level (and still walk or even run again the next day).
I don't object to medals for 'taking part', I don't refuse them or throw them away - just asking the question why runners have or expect them, and it's not in other sports to the same degree.
But I do keep records of my runs - time, distance, and since GPS, routes etc etc. I've never kept records for any other sport whether individual or team. What's different with running?
See KK, I agree with you there. I got my place at VLM last year through persistence (lets not pretend it was talent!) and refused year on year to take a charity place because the expectations are, I feel, way too high. In the end I got the ballot place and used it yo raise money for my local oncology unit.
Now I've placed myself in the tenuous position of registering for a challenge (55 mile bike & big feck off hill climb on Aaran) for the Diabetes UK charity. The entry stipulates a £10 entry fee and minimum £50 fundraising, which I feel is achieveable. The reality however is that I would have much rather have paid a higher entry fee, with part of that going to charity, accounting for organisational fees, at which point I would have happily used the event to raise money for my local diabetes endowment fund (I work in diabetes, which is how I found the DUK link). Feel like a hypocrite but this is one I would have entered with or without charity affiliation, I just feel uncomfortable with the context.
And for the record - my medals hung on a bookcase like KK's until it fell apart. Now they're on the bannister to the utility room because I can't think of anywhere else to put them. Every single one of them is for my benefit and mine only. Every single one of hem holds a memory, usually a painful one.