Marathon Essentials: Rewards Made of "Medal"

The current medal display.  Bibs and doodads.

Do you ever ponder WHY you run?  No?  Me neither. Ha!  These things I know for sure:  I like the challenges, the accomplishments, pushing myself to see what I can achieve, and….and…THE MEDALS!  Ever since I was a little girl I coveted the awards.  I wanted the dance trophy, the ribbons for running track, the certificates for reading the books, the President’s Council for Physical Fitness patch, even the badges from Girl Scouts were deemed precious….you name it, I am an award junkie.

I love my running medals.  Even the little metal medals with the stickers on them that are too cheap for engraving.  I like unusual medals, theme medals, medals that are extra heavy; medals I earn from earning other medals (e.g. Marathon in May, Beach Cities Challenge, Rock Encore).  When considering a race I look to see if there are finisher’s medal FIRST before I even look to see how much the race costs, or sometimes, when or where the race IS.  Who cares where it is!  Does it have a cool medal?  I check here to see what races have uber cool medals:  http://26point2medals.com/   Not that I will likely ever run most of these races, but some of them are just so clever.  Who DOESN’T want an alien on a medal?  A beaver?  Route 66?  The Marine’s emblem?  Flip flops?  C’mon…too good to pass up and all I have to do is run 13.1 or maybe 26.2 miles.  Big deal.  I will do it!

I am definitely getting an alien medal one day. 
The timing doesn't work out for this year...but maybe next.
It's a midnight run down the E.T. Highway in Nevada.  Yeah, baby.

Seriously, a BEAVER!

This is the coveted medal for this fall.  I hope they have one with my name on it, shiny and ready to go.

I hope they make the corporate sponsor less prominent. 
But I don't really care...just let me have it as soon as I cross the finish line!

Oh, I guess I should mention another reason WHY I run: I like it.  'nuff said!