Seeing the article about Paula Radcliffe winning a lamp (when the men's winner won a TV) got me thinking- what is the worst prize you have ever won?
For me, I once won a $20 gift certificate to a restaurant for getting second place in a local 5k ... the restaurant closed a week later and I never got to use it. Probably not a huge loss in the end, since a dinner for 2 would have probably been closer to $100 at that place.
When I was a Boy Scout we went to a "Can-Am" weekend in Ontario and there was a "triathlon" competition. You had to:
Canoe with a partner - untimed (Basically this didn't matter, but it was fun anyway...)
Ride a bicycle on a course that included both on & off-road areas for about 12 miles. - Timed
Run on trails for 3-4 miles - Timed
I won first prize which gave a lot of points to our troop for the weekend overall. My individual prize for the event? A pink & purple girls mountain bike - complete with pink, glittery handlebar streamers. Boy, was my sister happy when I got home...
Not a prize I won, but back in the early 80s my mom won a local race and first prize was some type of stupid, self-help book printed by one of the lead sponsors of the race.
Worst is any race that just gives a trophy or medal for winning. I'd rather have a gift certificate for a cup of coffee then a trophy or medal.
Otherwise, I'd say the race that I got $50 gift certificate to a running store for winning. 2nd place got an hour and a half massage. First race I kind of wish I hadn't won.
Back in the early 90s I ran a 10k in San Diego called The Fastest Masters. Peter Stern (well known in SD) was the race director. I placed in my age group and got a package of dried prunes.
D-Rash wrote:
Otherwise, I'd say the race that I got $50 gift certificate to a running store for winning. 2nd place got an hour and a half massage. First race I kind of wish I hadn't won.
Reminds me of another road race, where top 3 places in 5k, 10k, and half marathon all got prizes. However, year to year, the "best" prizes were not always given to 1st place. I won the 5k a couple years in a row; the first year I got a $100 Brooks gift certificate to a local sporting goods store, and the second year I got a $75 certificate to a yoga place. In that second year, my friend (3rd in the 10k) got the $100 Brooks gift certificate - and I gave him the yoga certificate since I had moved out of town and was unlikely to use it.
I placed and got a nice trophy in a big 5k (~12k people), but they always gave coffee cups to the top 10% in your age group and I'd always picked on up just because they were kinda cool. Few years back I went to get it and they hand me this weird like flimsy like....rope napsack. Took me about 10 seconds and I realize that it's the same bag they gave out at the door to the convention for FREE the year before. They had leftovers and decided to use them the next year for the age groupers. Just kind of irked me for some reason. Felt like a cheap move.
D-Rash wrote:
Otherwise, I'd say the race that I got $50 gift certificate to a running store for winning. 2nd place got an hour and a half massage. First race I kind of wish I hadn't won.
Yeah, that was not a happy ending.
I got a trophy for finishing 2nd overall, 1st Master that reads:
"Master Male Finisher"
Guess they were tight on space and couldn't squeeze a "1st place" anywhere in there.
Finished in 2nd place overall. Got a set of steak knives. You will NEVER guess what 1st place got....
D-Rash wrote:
Worst is any race that just gives a trophy or medal for winning. I'd rather have a gift certificate for a cup of coffee then a trophy or medal.
Definitely this, which is basically every race where I'm from. A plaque or crappy trophy is just basically another useless medal, except you feel like you can't toss it out. So, they just collect dust for a few years before get tossed out.
I ran a lot of local road races before I was in high school. The race directors never had enough medals for the youth age group winners so frequently I ended up with women's medals. One medal I remember fondly had a raised 3d-like woman's upper torso and head on the front. There was just no hiding the anatomy of that woman.
Won a large amount of pork at the pork festival 10k. I think it was the whole pig!
Am a vegetarian.
Won the local turkey trot in a Bay Area town I grew up in 3 years in a row. Won a medal every time.
Okay, was not a prize, but I ran some "heart healthy" 10K and, after crossing the finish, was handed a cup of kashi and a cup of unsweetened yogurt.
Thanks!
for NUTHIN'!
A pair of ON running shoes and promise from Paula Radcliffe to take a lie detector test.
I won a local 10 miler in an American Record (Although it was technically before the race started as a warm-up), and all I got was a ton of flak from the internet.
I won a little race once and they gave me an old water bottle spray painted gold.
it was sort of WTF cray cray in an appealing way, but it was just a piece of garbage really.
The first 5k I ever won, I got... nothing.
The race director came up to me and said that they spent so much time on the AG awards (I won that, lol) that they didn't even think about awards for the overall.
I was so happy to have won, I didn't care :-)
Got a sapling to plant in the yard once for winning a crappy 5k, might have been cool to see it grow but I planted it in my dad's yard and he moved 10 hours away like a month later. Maybe I'll go back and see how it's doing someday.