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Posts tagged ‘race bib’

Jun 7

Sending my husband to See Jane Run packet pickup

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I’ve had an incredibly busy week. We made last weekend a long one, adding the extra day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Then I came back to a 10-hour work day to catch up on my freelance assignments. Yesterday, my boss for freelance left for a well-deserved vacation. She left me a ridiculously long to do list.

My anxiety is a little off the charts right now. But I’m trying to handle it.

My biggest concern was the See Jane Run expo happening this week. This race, unlike many of the ones I’ve run lately, is on a Saturday. It’s nice because it gets my long run done at the beginning of the weekend. But there’s no Saturday expo, either.

I spent all Wednesday trying to figure out when I’d have a free moment. Then I realized my husband worked incredibly close to the packet pickup area. So I politely asked him to brave the expo and pick up my race packet.

I have to say, I was a little nervous. I kept expecting a phone call. It never came. He brought home my race packet perfectly tonight. I was worried he didn’t grab my chip, but it was on the back on my race bib.

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The race, which includes Chipotle as a sponsor, includes a coupon for a buy one, get one deal at the restaurant. It also has the amazing “champagne glass” ticket at the bottom ready for me to claim my chocolate and champagne after the race (I’m so very excited for that!).

Plus, the race packet actually came in an incredibly cute back with the See Jane Run manifesto on it.

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It’s a good size too, one that I’ll definitely use for lugging around things. I’m a big fan of reusable bags. I have quite a few little backpacks from Rock ‘n’ Roll series runs. I also have some reusable backpacks from the past two marathons I’ve run. But this bag is not only functional, it’s also cute.

I’ll definitely be using it a lot.

The best part of my packet?

The race shirt!

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I LOVE the shirt design and color. I’ve always been a fan of my bright race shirts, but this one is perfect for running in the evenings around town. (I’d rather wear something bright, because people tend to pretend like they can’t see me, even though I made myself pretty visible.)

Words cannot express how excited I am about this race. I know that barring nothing horrendous happening on the course, I will definitely do better than my 2:42 time from 2011. If my recent races are any indication, I also know that I’ll have a good time while pushing myself hard. That part of running is all new for me.

This is also my last long run before the San Francisco Marathon, which I’m excited to finally get to as well.

Lots of amazing things have happened in my running life lately. And I know See Jane Run will be another chapter in that.

May 30

What do you when Kara Goucher signs your race bib?

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This one time, at a race expo, super runner Kara Goucher signed my race bib. She was super nice about it and even let me take a photo with her. Which is amazing, because she’s Kara-freaking-Goucher. She can run marathons in the time it takes me to run a half marathon.

This is a fan girl moment for me. A running fan girl moment. I not only have photos of it. I also have the bib.

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Now I keep all my race bibs anyway. I’ve included posts on this blog that include my “bib wall” in my home office, i.e. the place where I spend most of my day coding and working on WordPress blogs. I like to look up and be reminded of what I’ve done.

I also keep my half marathon “PR medal” right in front of my computer. All reminders of the amazing things I’ve done running and how far I’ve come just in the past five months.

But a bib signed by Kara Goucher deserves more than just a spot on the “bib wall.”

No. It needs to be put in a place of reverence. It needs to be put somewhere where not just my husband and I will see it. But it also needs to be incorporated into the decor of our home.

So it needed a frame.

Yes, I framed the Kara Goucher signed race bib.

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It’s not a custom job, because that would have cost a lot of money. This is a Michael’s 12X12 frame matted down to 8X8. I found an online coupon for 25 percent off. I went for it. The matted area is almost the size of the Rock ‘n’ Roll race bibs, enough to fake it. And see Kara Goucher’s signature. Because that’s really what is important here.

And now the bib is sitting in my family room, above the mantle for my fireplace. It’s part of the decor. Because it’s so awesome it should be.

I should mention this isn’t my first race-related art piece in my home. I should probably do a blog post on all of them one day. Since running is part of my life, it’s also featured prominently in my home.

But this is now my newest prized possession. I’m actually considering taking it to school and putting it on the wall in my office.

Feb 25

Protecting prized possessions

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Last fall, in the middle of everything that went south in my life, one of my friends lost most of her home to a fire. It started with a laptop charger. The resulting damage is so much that she’s been forced out of her home for probably as long as a year. She lost nearly everything in the fire.

The little that was salvageable was whatever doesn’t reek of charred remains. We were talking the other day and she mentioned her race mementos: medals and shirts included.

Then she prompted me: Imagine, if everything was suddenly gone. She knows of my vast collection of race bibs adorning my home office walls, right next to my medals and my college and graduate school degrees.

“All your bibs,” she said.

I’d like to think we have protection for that sort of thing, at least to some degree. In 2008, my husband and I purchased a safe after our then rental home was broken into. It happened less than 10 days before Christmas. Our dead-bolt locks were kicked in, as was part of our fence. My dog Sky and I came home to massive footprints on our kicked-in doors, not knowing if someone was in the house.

Because I’m ballsy and a little stupid, I walked in with my husband’s ice ax prepared to greet the intruder.

I called the police.

They told me not to go in. I did anyway. (Again, ballsy and stupid.)

I found all of my jewelry gone. And two bottles of malt liquor. And some cheese. The presents, all wrapped, were still intact. Gone was a backpack, our video camera and every piece of jewelry I’d collected in my adult life.

I was devastated by one piece in particular: my antique engagement ring from my grandmother.

Long story short: Our insurance settled with us for nearly $5,000 in goods. But my high school class ring, numerous necklaces given to me as gifts and my first set of pearls my mom bought me were all gone.

So we bought the safe. And two more dogs. (A couple years ago, burglars were casing houses in my town by knocking on doors. If they heard a dog bark, they’d go on to the next house.)

It gives me solace, but very little when I think about the sense of loss and violation that I felt after our items were taken.

Which brings me to something as simple as a race bib.

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I have them all on a wall in my office. Yesterday, I removed nearly half of them and placed them in a folder for safekeeping. And literally safekeeping. My intention is to put them in our fireproof safe.

It’s made me start to thinking about other memorabilia I have from running (and everything else I consider irreplaceable in my home) and how I wouldn’t be able to replace any of those items.

So I’m trying to figure out what to do with some of these items, specially ones I consider incredibly dear. My first marathon medal? I can’t replace that. Some of my favorite running shirts? Very few race organizers have extras years after it happens. And how would you go about replacing items from races all at once? That seems impossible.

I once saw a runner ask Big Sur International Marathon officials on the organization’s Facebook page if they had any extra medals because one was damages. BSIM is incredibly good about getting back to people. And race officials did, saying they had extras and they’d send one along. But I know other organizations give them away. California International Marathon donates the previous year’s medals to children who participate in a charity run the next year. One race I did ran out of the medal, meaning the organizers likely didn’t order all that many extras the second time around.

A race bib is probably the least of my worries if something like this happens, right?

Yes.

But bibs are one of those things that I’d likely look back on and say: “Wow, I wish I still had that.”

Especially fond memories. Like my first marathon.

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I don’t want to lose any of my mementos from that race. It was a defining experience for me.

So I wonder what to do next with items like this, as opposed to just putting them in a fireproof safe. Is there something more? Should I scour Pinterest and find of what crafty people would do with race bibs and medals?

The ideas I’m found doesn’t include protecting items like this against disasters. Most just show you how to frame or display them, not really how to preserve something so prized.