Race medals and memorabilia.....

Ok, everyone knows I love receiving medals at races and I've gotten some outstanding medals over the past few years.  You can see all 39 of them close up HERE.

For the record, I don't specifically run a race because of the medal.  I have to want to do the race first but it is a small part of my decision making when deciding what race to run.  If I'm looking at two races the same day and all else is equal, I'll choose the one with the medal.  I was having a conversation with a local runner, Matt, yesterday about this.  As Matt also said, he would never run a bad race just because of the sweet medal as well.  I could not agree more with that.  I've run a particular race that I thought had an awesome medal but I won't run it again because it does not have the qualities of a good race in my opinion.

So I got to thinking that I'd put a post together with my medals and hangers.  I love displaying my medals and the reason I keep them is that each one bears a memory about the race.  I love getting up each morning seeing them in my home office.  Here's what I've got currently(pictures taken yesterday).

I'll start with the Mack Daddy, the mother of all race medal holders, the custom made medal holder made by Allied Medal Displays.  This thing will hold a TON of medals for years to come and I was fortunate enough to help with the original design of this.  Allied Medal Displays has some incredibly talented people there that can make anything you want.  You can also buy a version of this medal holder on their website as well, HERE, but there's nothing like a custom made design for your medals.  I added the black background to the medal holder which is just a piece of wood spray painted black.

Almost everything on this is my marathon medals(4) and half marathon medals(16) with a couple other various races as well.  Allied provides clips so you can spread them out more to see them better but I like them all hanging lumped like this.

Custom designed by Allied Medals Displays and yours truly

I also received an e-mail yesterday from a reader, Shane, who saw my review of the medal display(click HERE) and loved the idea so he made a custom design for his girlfriend at Allied as well.  Check it out:

A really nice design if I do say so myself.  Of course, I'm sure the "Detroit Runner" in it was meant to be a generic name and not my blog name but it's the ultimate complement to see it on another custom medal.  I love the design with the girl heading to the trails.  Very nice Shane!

Next up is also another design that Allied Medal Displays made for me(click HERE for review).  It's also custom but a little more generic with my blog name.  I used to have this exact font on my blog and that's where they got it from.  I love it!  As you can see below, right now I've got all my Kona Running Company medals on there along with some various AG awards.  My plan is to have this completely full with Kona medals after this year.

Allied Medal Displays medal holder

You will also notice on the two displays above that I have race bibs in holders above the hangers.  These holders are called Racer Wall Frames(click HERE for review).  These are really inexpensive display units that will hold your favorite bibs and I think they look fantastic.  The two race bibs I have in there are Corktown which is my first 5k ever and Capital City River Run which is my half marathon PR(1:39:18).

I've also got a nice smaller medal display made by Sport Hooks(click HERE for review).  This one is powder coated for a nice black look.  While I don't have any medals on it now, I do use it for my race hats and also to display my race bibs.  Check it out:

Sport Hooks Display

As you can see, this display holds at a minimum of five medals but you could easily hold more if you wanted to.  It's got the standard "RUN" with a runner carved out and it is also a very nice product.

I also have a separate display for my Marathon PR(3:38:20) course, the Grand Rapids Marathon(marathon #4)(click for race review HERE)

Grand Rapids 2012

I decided to make a custom shadowbox of the race medal, bib, finish line photo(which happens to be my only race photo I've ever bought) and the race shirt.  It's one race I'm really proud of accomplishing.  Of course, the display is nothing even close to Jim's display's he makes - click HERE - which are incredible(he's also a very talented/fast runner) but I think that mine turned out pretty good.

And last but not least, I have some various items displayed that I've received at races.  These include several glasses/mugs, one of which I just won from the Rockin Relay(frosted) and the others were glasses that came with race registrations and/or finishing the race.  I also have my half marathon Age Group award and several coins(from Crim races) along with several race buttons and race stickers.

As you can see, my office is filled with race memories, and given I use my office daily for blogging and other activities, I get to enjoy them all the time.

I hope this has give you some inspiration for what to do with your race medals and memorabilia.  I cringe when I see bloggers posting pictures of a box of medals thrown together.  Be proud of your accomplishments and show them off!

Have a great day and....Keep Running!!!!

*Note - I received no compensation and/or additional products for this blog post.  I received the medal hangers/bib holders in exchange for the original product reviews; however, none of the companies noted in this blog post requested or paid for me to write this.