Sunday, April 19, 2015

Bling

The Wall Street Journal had an article last week about the "bling" given out at foot races. Apparently the Little Rock Marathon is still the biggest when it comes to finisher's medals.


This baby is 8-1/2" x 8-1/4" and weighs about three pounds. Gi-normous! The article showed a photo of a runner's rack of medals and while I don't have near as many as what was in the newspaper photo, I do have my own little shrine to sweat.


My Little Rock Marathon medal is right above my very own Guzman Glove just left of center. When I ran the race in 2006 it was billed as the "World's Largest Finisher's Medal". Compared to the current one, it looks kind of anemic. I mentioned the article to the Missus and she told me straight out, don't even think about doing another one. No problem there - one and done. The real question is, what the hell am I going to do with all this junk. Other than the pint glass and the Indian clubs what good is all this crap? Who needs a pair of mis-matched wooden shoes? Or for that matter, a pair of horseshoes? 


Or an age bracket medal like the one I won yesterday. I really shouldn't say won. It was more like a show-up award. The race was a little fundraising event for a local family and I think I was the only runner in the 60-69 age group but I did actually run about a third of the distance. Felt pretty good to be out and moving on a beautiful Spring day. My running partner and I are planning on another run towards the end of May. It's to raise money for lymphoma and since I now have a personal connection to that, seems like the one to run. Won't have to worry about a medal at that one. It's a larger race - probably more than one entrant in my age group. But I do have time to actually train for it - be nice if I could actually run three miles again without stopping. And speaking of lymphoma, the Missus is doing better. She's been having some issues with the chemo but it's working. Dr. says the treatment is progressing nicely. Amen to that, Brother!

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