It’s a bling thing🏅

During my relatively short running career, I’ve collected my fair share of running medals. From 5ks to marathons, it’s always a great feeling to cross the line and have a big chunk of metal hung around your neck to wear for the rest of the day (or at least until you’ve had enough of looking like a bit of a dick). In recent years, the size and design of race medals has changed rapidly from the lightweight, generic medals of yesteryear to gargantuan monstrosities that require a solid set of quadriceps in order to lift them. Go back as little as 10 years of London Marathon medals to see what I mean. These days, you can saunter round a 5k and still receive a medal bigger than your car. Still, it’s always a bit hit an miss, so I’d like to share with you my collection of medals; the good, the bad and the downright pathetic.

The ‘good’

I love my marathon medals. They represent my ultimate achievements in running so far and, as such, I have them proudly displayed in my home for all to see. It helps that they are heavy buggers and look great.

Another bunch of medals that I think look superb and mean something to me are my set of Spitfire 10k medals. This is the first 10k race I ran after breaking my leg and represents the start of my running journey. Plus, they are in the shape of Spitfires – that’s so f’ing cool.

The rest of the ‘good’ ones consist of medals I think are great designs and make you feel like you’ve got a bit of value for money at the end of a race. The Olympic Park and Palace Half medals in particular are so detailed and very striking. Well worth the extra effort!

The ‘bad’

I’ve run a fair few RunThrough events and I’m always impressed by the organisation of the races they put on, but I’m never that taken with the medals at the end. Sure, the cost of the races are cheaper compared to some, but I’m just left a little disappointed. They always seem a little childish and cheap to me. I don’t like medals with the ring/hook attachments either. The others are too small for my taste, or a bit boring – particularly the British 10k medal considering it was on the more expensive side to enter.

The ‘downright pathetic’

These are just shite. The Thames Meander half marathon medal is so small and ugly, the detail is lost. And the other three are just awful. It turns me off entering future races. Grr.

I look forward to adding to this collection in future and hope that I can fill it with more of the ‘good’ than the ‘bad’. I can’t wait to see what the Istanbul Marathon has to offer in the way of bling and hope it’s worthy enough to add to my wall!

Do you have a favourite medal? Or do you own some absolute shockers? Leave a comment!

Cheers

JM