In the past I’ve looked at race medal displays at race expos and have always concluded that they either cost more than I wanted to spend, or they didn’t have enough room to hold all of our finishers’ medals…

For years we had our medals displayed side-by-side on a shelf in our library.

MedalsShelf

 

My friend Miles kept his medals hanging around the neck of a gnome on his kitchen counter for a few years…

MileGnome

 

But today Miles keeps them in a bag in his closet…

MedalsBagCloset

 

My Cruiser friend Jess hangs her medals on a small old fashioned dress form, and I think this is one of the cutest ideas I’ve seen!

JessMedalDisplay

 

One of my MRTT friends, Aileen, displays her medals in a picture frame, and I think this is one of the classiest displays I’ve seen!

FramedRaceMedals

 

So I copied the idea for my Ragnar medals…

RagnarMedalFrame_3251x

 

And yet another MRTT friend, Céline, displays her medals and bibs together in this cute fashion.  I love how her family writes notes above some of the special races.

RaceMedalAndBibDisplay

 

Another friend keeps her medals on a fancy tray in her bathroom!  I’ve even heard of people draping them around a wine bottle.

MedalsWineBottle

 

And then I found this clever wind chime on Pinterest…

 

Or you could just dump your medals out on the floor every once in a while to remember your favorite marathons…

MedalsMilesPile

 

I put some of my overflow medals in a giant wine glass to set on the bar (photo staged on white background just for fun)…

GlassOfMedalsHokieHalf_3254x
 

As Bill’s and my medal collection grew, we needed an out-of-the-way place to keep them, and somewhere besides on the library shelf were they were a major pain to dust!

One day while shopping at Home Depot, I got an idea!

CafeRods

 

For only $10.37 I could make my own adjustable race medal display out of a cafe curtain rod!  So I bought two…

CafeRod

 

First I hung two rods, one above the other with enough space between them for the top row of medals to hang freely…

MedalRod

 

And then, I hung our medals!

MedalsWallDisplay

 

We have these hanging in our gym in the basement.  It’s the perfect place to keep us motivated to work hard!

And of course the sweetest thing to do with your unwanted medals is to donate them to organizations such as the Special Olympics where they are recycled for children!   I’m not ready to part with them yet, but someday that’s where they’ll go!

 

  • Questions:
  • Do you have a clever way that you display your medals?
  • Have you ever donated your medals or trophies to organizations to be recycled?
  • What plans do you have for the weekend?