Finishing a Marathon is a State of Mind That Says Anything is Possible

Look at my new project!

I've been training for my eighth marathon, which just sounds crazy to say.  When I started this journey in 2013, my goal was just to finish one marathon.  I had just finished a half marathon, and I very foolishly thought, "I could probably keep going...another 13.1 miles."  Every time I train for one, I think that I'm nuts, and each time I finish one I can hardly wait for the next one.  That's what has led me to run two marathons every year.

Finish Line, Fox Cities Marathon 2014

As a result of running these marathons, I have a bunch of race shirts (that I wear almost all the time!), lots of bib numbers (which went directly in my scrapbook), and a couple of really cool medals, which have basically just sat in a drawer.  That is a sad place to put medals.  I get to wear them for one day (race day, obviously) and then they just fade into obscurity.

I've seen medal displays at race expos, but they can be $80 or more, and I'm just not willing to spend that much.  So...DIY time!

I started by buying 6 inch wooden letters that would spell out the word RUNNING.

I painted them all white to start with, and then I decided to paint each one a different color, so it would be like a rainbow.  And then I also decided to do a different pattern for each one.

R=red thick horizontal stripes

U=orange polka dots

N=yellow diagonal varied stripes

N=green ombre

I=blue zig zag stripes

N=purple sponge paint

G=pink overlapping dots  

Then, off I went to the hardware store, where I picked up an oak board 1x10x36, six hooks, and some picture hangers.  

I painted the board black, because I thought the rainbow letters would stand out more against a black background, instead of wood-colored.  I lined up the letters so that they would span the entire distance, but I left about 2 inches at the bottom for the hooks.

The hooks ended up being a problem.  I initially thought (confirmed by my husband) that I could hand screw in the hooks.  Turns out oak is a lot harder than anticipated...so my husband had to drill some holes in the board to let us get the screws in.  We may have broken a couple of screws, but we did end up getting them in.  And by "we," I mostly mean my husband did that part for me.

Thanks honey!

The hooks had silver screws, so I painted over them with some black paint, and also touched up some of the places where you could tell that we had drilled into the board because the black paint was chipped away.  

Once everything was attached, I hung it up and hung up my medals on the board--which was really exciting!  Somehow the amount of races I've run seems a lot more impressive when they're all hung up on a board and displayed.  Check it out:

  

Ignore the bar...it is temporarily hung in the bathroom, and that's the towel bar.  

It will move to its permanent home soon.  

Yay!  I'm so excited about this.  I'm actually working on a whole running wall, complete with pictures, quotes, a poster, and this medal display.  Hopefully it turns out just as nicely as this display did!