What Runners Can Do With All These Racing Medals
Maybe you win a lot. Or maybe you just participate in a lot of races that earn finisher medals – marathons, half marathons, new 5K items . Either way, that first coveted medal ends up being a few pounds of hardware weighing down your doorknob or filling your dresser drawer. Here are some more fun ways to value or get rid of these medals.
Give them away
Medals 4 Mettle accepts medals for marathon, half marathon and triathlon. They replace the tape with their own and give it to people, mainly children, who are facing their own problems with cancer, chronic illness, injury or other life problems. “These medals are awarded to those who have to run a much more difficult race than the races of the medal donors; a race they didn’t choose: a race in which the finish line may not be known.
Purchase (or make) a suitable hanging rack
If you still want to see all those medals hanging next to each other, try one of the shelving that has medal hooks underneath crappy “born to run” lettering. Some also have a place to hang racing bibs if you want to keep the numbers you wore while racing. It’s a clever combination : hooks under the chalkboard. You can pin the bibs to the chalkboard and also record the time on your personal bests.
Making a stand is also easy. You can use a coat or key hanger, or a hand towel rail. (Just wrap the medal ribbons around the rod.) If you have hands, attach some hooks or nails to the board and make it as pretty as you like.
If there is a particular race you want to immortalize – perhaps your first marathon – you can place a bib, medal, and any mementos you like (track map?) In a shadow box , which is essentially a 3D frame.
If you have a home gym, this is the perfect place to hang your display. Use this to motivate yourself to debunk these PRs.
Turn them into something
Glue magnets to the back of your medals and they become fridge magnets: always visible, but still useful. (You will of course have to remove the tape.) Redditor ChefAaronFitz writes that it works using neodymium magnets and Gorilla glue. Here is the finished result .
Or buy a stand kit and insert a medal into it. This even works with irregularly shaped medals if they fit inside the stand and your medal is displayed again without taking up any wall space.
If you have a Christmas tree, and if your medals aren’t too big, swap the ribbon for a crochet hook and you’ve got a Christmas tree decorations set.