My best and only prize ever back in 2010:
$75 for 3rd place overall.
1/2 marathon
1:19:45
It was a local race with a weak field but I’ll take it.
My best and only prize ever back in 2010:
$75 for 3rd place overall.
1/2 marathon
1:19:45
It was a local race with a weak field but I’ll take it.
Long sleeve top for 7th place at Holme Moss fell race. Was too small and I gave it to a friend.
Winner got a 6 pack and another runner got a prize just because he'd done Wasdale (a really hard race) the day before.
Free pair of shoes for winning a half in 75:01
Gold medal
5k- 13:31
1964 Tokyo
Placed 2nd in the 14 and under (ah the good old days) division of the Revco Cleveland Marathon in the early 80's. Won a microwave. Sold it to my neighbor and bought a bike. 3:30 something for the time.
1978, Half Marathon on the Caribbean Island of Tobago, 1:07 I think, won a stainless steel cutlery set of carving knives and forks. The airline was not happy about it in my carry-on and took it away. Said I'd get it back at the end of the trip. I did! My parents were stil using it 30 years later. Then they moved, and I don't know what happened to it.
Carrot Cake from "Lloyd's Carrot Cake" in the Bronx.
"Urban Environmental Challenge," hosted by VCP Track Club," about 20 years ago. The course was tough, a lot of bushwhacking and veering off of normal VCP routes. My log shows a 6.3 miles for some reason, I don't recall why, because it is now a 10K.
6th place overall in 39:20; AG 2nd place. I read the founder of Lloyd's Carrot Cake just passed away in December.
A congratulations and a 'YOU PARTICIPATED' certificate.
A pair of Vibrams with 30 bags of pita chips
Time: 17:38
Race 5k
I was 16 and the competition was obviously non existent.
I found a couple of sites that said the full cash amount wasn't paid out though. Still a great prize but perhaps not quite as great as advertised...
Worth the most? Probably $50 gift cert for sporting goods store for 3rd in 5k. I suppose I broke 15, but don't remember the time.
Proudest of? I ran a bunch of road races in Japan during late 80s, to include a team 3rd in an Ekiden. Don't remember what they gave us.
Favorite prize? A local promoter gave my training partner a really nice Nike bag after he won a 10-mile race (see below), and the guy got other prizes as well at that race. I felt slighted that I had won so many races for this promoter and never got a prize, so he promised me a Nike bag if I broke 15 minutes in a 5k track meet he was helping sponsor. I ran 14:59.6 to claim the bag, and he was pissed that I ran just fast enough to break 15. I kept that trophy for over a decade until the bag fell apart.
The prizes I didn't get? I didn't like 10k, and so to race 10 miles was not my thing. However, I was winning the local races. Finally, a training partner of mine won a 10 mile race on a course with lots of twists and turns around flags, etc. I was relieved that I no longer had to run the 10 milers, but as I neared the finish line I noticed a TV camera, a crowd of people (normally only a few) and prizes my friend got. Also, a really hot 19 year old woman decided my friend was her date because he won.
1990, Suburban St. Louis, on the East Side. Just out of college.
A new multi-screen movie theater opened about 3 miles from my house. As a promo, they staged a mile race around the parking lot. Won a one year pass to the theater in 4:35. There might have been 15-20 runners.
2k cash (back in the 80's seemed like a lot back then), trip to Hawaii, yacht trip with overnight accomodations on a resort on San Juan's, a plane ticket to anywhere is US, just to mention a few. Too long ago to remember the races and times.
roughly 2011 I won round-trip plane tickets (2) to anywhere in US for winning a small 5k on the campus of the college where I teach (around 18:30?). My wife and daughter (HS senior then) used them to cover a college visit.
The next year one good runner heard about the prize and showed up and demolished me, and I don't think they've held the race since then. Very unusual for this area (DC) to have a prize worth much yet few or no fast runners in the field.
$250 for 5th at the 2019 Owens Corning HM (Toledo/Glass City). The lead pack of 4 were led off course, so I went from 9th to in the money. 1:10:39
GBohannon wrote:
$250 for 5th at the 2019 Owens Corning HM (Toledo/Glass City). The lead pack of 4 were led off course, so I went from 9th to in the money. 1:10:39
That's hilarious...
Two teammates and I ran a 12k CC race, danced all night, and someone drove us 2 hours (4 am to 6am) to a road race. With a couple of hours sleep, we led at the turnaround for the 10k, and finished 1-2-3. I was 2nd. The reception was inside a Holiday Inn, so we were looking to dance to the music blaring, and eating the buffet. The winner of the half-marathon arrives, comes up to us (he ran 1:09 +) and says that when he saw the 3 of us all wearing the same T-shirts with a logo on the back, he decided that if we ran the half, he was running the 10k, or vice versa.
Coupon for a pair of running shoes twice.
5K - 19:XX cold and rainy (about 200 entrants)
10K - 39:XX - about 100 entrants, (race offered 10 mi, 10K and 5K, most of the faster guys did the 10mi)
Only prize I ever won was a set of margarita glasses for a 5K age group 3rd place finish in 19:xx. I had jogged over to the race for my warm-up, so had to jog back 3 miles carrying the box under my arm. Still felt awesome. Couldn't believe I'd won something.
Best prize: $200 for winning an ElliptiGO 5 mile race a few years ago ($100 for winning, $50 one mile Prime, and $50 for breaking my own course record). Other than that won a tv for winning a triathlon in the 1980s. Won lots or random stuff running, but I enjoyed winning a $25 bank savings account at a 20k in Bourne, Ma. Back in the late 1970s. This race had tables full of prizes and many of New England’s top runners like Bill Rodgers would often show up. Seemed like a lot of money for a young scrub runner like me to find on the table to choose as my prize. Another year, I won lobster at the same race.
oldie wrote:
There used to be pretty great prizes and entry fees were low. Now there are junk prizes and high entry fees.
My best prize was $10,000 a year for fifty years, a Rolex and a Jeep Cherokee at a race in Vegas, 1985. At that race, every participant was given a computer and some other swag that I don't recall.
You're the guy who won that? Well done. You've got 15 more checks to go.