An Untold Story: The Superman Medal

I'm a medal maker.

It started well over two years ago prior to the Laguna Hills Half-Marathon. See this text taken straight from my original race review:

There was no medal awarded at this race, which is unfortunate, though they had a finisher's glass and good food such as Souplantation muffins and pizza from the California Pizza Kitchen. I was feeling too sick to eat too much but managed to get down half a banana and some muffin tops.

After about a month of hanging out (or whatever they call it these days) with "The Ukrainain," he asked me about the race and asked for the URL.

I was taken aback, as this was not expected and a huge plunge for someone who has never raced before and only been seeing someone for such a short time. Reluctantly, I gave him the info, and next thing you know, we were at the starting line together!

Above: My hair = holy moley! (Photo credit to Tea Time)

Little did he know, I had something up my sleeve (or in my running short pockets)...............

I had gone online and purchased this little number. Our little inside joke at the time was that he was "Superman." I attached it to some green ribbon that I had and sealed it off with a glue gun. This was the outcome:
Yes, it sucked to run 13.1 miles with a semi-heavy object in my pocket when I wasn't yet used to bearing extra weight during races. But somehow, I PRed that day.

Above: See my left short pocket for hiding medal.

Once we had crossed the finish line and caught our breaths, I started regretting that I had done something so cheesy, but I sheepishly took the medal, protected by a small ziploc baggie, out of my running shorts pocket.

I said something to the effect of, "I know there was no medal for this race, but this was your first one.... so I made you this." And just like a race volunteer, I put it over his neck.

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At the time, I tried to make as little mention of "The Ukrainian" as possible in this blog (or in life in general), but I thought that maybe one day, I'd be able to tell this little story. I guess the day has come.

I'm sure I can come up with more of these little "side stories" that have transpired throughout my time on the blog. Thus, I created a tag for them! My original purpose of blogging was to scrapbook my running adventures so that I would not forget. So now, the medal story = not forgotten.