Thursday, August 16, 2012

MEDALS, AND LOTS OF THEM

I have been running for a long time and over the years I have collected a lot of medals!!! So many I don't really know what to do with them!!!

In fact I don't take a medal any more, for years I would take a medal and, well they just ended up in a box:

Just too Many
Now the only medals I take are "special" ones, ones I have earned... A couple of years ago I came 3rd in a race and the young lady at the end handed me a Gold Medal, I looked at it and thought a bit... then asked her if there were any bronze medals, I had come 3rd after all! She told me it was Gold for top 10, Silver till 100 them Bronze, I took a bronze.

I also keep medal I get from the couple of overseas races I have run, and a couple of races I think I have earned. So what do I do with all these medals? Well I hang them around my head!!

MINE ARE ON THE RIGHT

2 Oceans Medals? No they don't hang round the neck, they have a place all of their own, Oceans is a special race, and back when I ran my first one I was going to run lots of them, and all in sub 4, I had dreams of running 20 silvers in a row... But running the 2nd one with an injury, I couldn't make the silver cut, my total sits at 11, plus a couple of Oceans Trail medals:

Should have stopped at 10!
Now back in the early 90's I picked up a medal at WP champs on the track, but it was in steeplechase, and to be honest I wasn't really that fast, it's just that back then every few people race steeple! So I still wanted WP medals, and turning 40 had opened the door again...

Injury had kept me out of the medals the first couple of years, but (as you know) I ran a good race in the wind at WP half marathon champs and brought home the silver:

Silver looks nice
Then this weekend past was WP CCC and again I was in the mix... With the wind blowing and the threat of rain hanging over us it was going to be a great race. I have only run 1 of the league races and that was after a 29km mountain run in the morning, so I didn't know if I would have the better of the other guys, but I went out hard and let the race unfold...
I'm not going to give you a step by step account of the race, but I will tell you that Graham got away and then Sean was just to fast, but Rusta from Gugs and I had a great race with him catching me with the wind behind and me pulling ahead into the wind! That was till the last lap when I got ahead and stayed ahead for the BRONZE. Sorry I don't have a medal to show you, but I didn't stay 3 hours after my race to wait for prize giving. Don't worry I'll get it sometime.

So just how many medal would I have if...

You know about the 200 x 10km races
then what about the 159 x 15km races
and we also have 188 x half marathons
40 x 30km races (last one was on Sunday after the Cross Country Champs on Saturday)
15 x red hill 36km races
only 60 marathons (2 at the end of an IRONMAN)
11 x 2 Oceans 56km
2 x Comrades +_90km (an up and a down)

what about the:
41 x 16km
13 x 8km
5 x 7km
11 x 6km
110 trail races, but most of them don't do medals, and some have been 5 day races.
I don't have records of all the track and CC races I've done, but they would add to any medal count...

6 comments:

  1. WOW. That is A LOT of medals!!! I know they have programs in the US where you can donate unwanted medals and they reuse them and give them to kids.

    You should definitely be proud of all you have accomplished. I only have one rack of medals thus far but my kids love them. :) You are a great runner and racer. Very cool!

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  2. Wow. : ) Thats all I've got. haha. Impressive.

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  3. You could melt them all down and make them into something important - like a car or a robot or a special hat that stops aliens from reading your thoughts. But seriously it's a dilemma to have that many medals. Maybe you should throw your own version of the Olympics.

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  4. Wow, that is insane how many races you've done. Well done all around.

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  5. Yea, with your speed you should have been out on the Olympic marathon course!

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  6. A program similar to what Erin is talking about is here:

    http://www.medals4mettle.org/ I donated about 50 of mine a few years ago. It was a bit pricey to ship, but worth it. Like you said, the majority of mine were sitting in a box.

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