Worst prize you have won at a race

At a Boy Scout event called "Can-Am" in Ontario, Canada a few of us competed in a triathlon. Instead of swim, bike, run, we had to canoe, run, bike. We also waited for everyone to finish each event before moving on to the next, the different stage cumulative times were still kept.

Anyway, I won the thing and at the awards ceremony everyone was receiving these wooden plaques with what looked like house #'s on them, kinda cheesy, but no big deal.

Then they announce my name, troop # and make a big spectacle about "This Year's Can-Am Champion," and proceed to wheel out this purple girls mountain bike as the coveted grand prize...

I ended up selling it for 50 bucks to my Dad's boss for her daughter, but never got to live down owning a purple girls bicycle.

FML.

I won a gym bag that was embroidered with my name and the name of the race. The race was a "Race for Life" deal sponsored by a church, so they wanted me to attend the church the next Sunday to claim the prize. I did.

I also won a miniature cotton bail in a race in Lubbock.

In Clovis, NM, home of a convenience store chain called Allsups, I won a grab bag full of covenience store stuff -- Beanie Weinies, Slim Jims, etc.

snowed in wrote:

Mine was a railroad spike with a little engraved tile with the race name and age group place. Titusville PA

This is the worst? It sounds like an awesome prize, especially for an age-grouper.

A beanie baby!

a pump a drink thermos. I was 12 yrs old.

I felt like steve martin in The Jerk, "I'm picking out a thermos for you.... Not an ordinary thermos, for you..."

Worst: was a blue ribbon for winning the race while they then proceeded to give away large prizes in a post-race raffle.

Best: $60 gift certificate for my favorite bar and a free large pizza gift certificate (I fed myself and got drunk that night). Another good one was $50 cash...cash is tough to beat.

I won a bag of mushrooms at the Masterton relays in rural NZ. The local mushroom farm was the major sponsor. We threw them out the window at cars and people on the way home.

a gift certificate to a running store you are the OWNER of!!! :)

washed up has been wrote:

A gift certificate to chipotle, which gave me the worst food poisoning I've ever had.

Dang you are weak.

Does a non-prize count? I finished as second woman overall in a fairly pricy, large, chip-timed 5K this spring. Website stated prizes to top three women overall. But turned out that they were just giving to top overall man and woman.

I won a race, was looking forward to receiving my promised "prize" in the mail, and got a ribbon. I was pissed. The finisher's medal that everyone got was made from clay that was made by some elementary school looped through some hemp or something.

The race had tons of sponsers, it was a trail race so it's not like they had to close down streets, they had very limited post-race snacks, gave away nothing for prizes, so I haven't a clue what they did with all the money from the entries.

I met a typical girl from Berkeley after the XC champs once. No sex but great BJ.

Good thing no sex was had, found out later she had herpes. Coulda been the worst prize.

Entry into the next years race. Race was so poorly organized there never was a "next years race"

A framed picture of a cementary

Only reasoned I entered was cos they said there was prizes for first 3.

I won a picture frame.

a crabcake, since it's the only thing I've won (even though I like crabcakes). The prize for the person slower than me was icecream

Ant99 wrote:

A framed picture of a cementary

Really? that's hilarious.

Not necessarily the Worst Prize on this thread, but years ago at the Lompoc Marathon I won a five-pound sack of dried pinto beans.

Pinto beans used to be a big cash crop in Lompoc.

Can't recall that I ever ate my way through that sack.

A sack of oranges at the Orange Festival 5K in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Oranges were the cash crop (along with speed traps) in Plaquemines but Katrina may have ended that.