The art of creating spectacular race bling

Ever wonder how race directors come up with their awesome medal ideas? Michelle Kempton shares the stages– including the initial sketches.

The difference between a standard finisher’s medal and spectacular race bling is creativity. This requires imagination. Of course, having artistic ability is an asset.

I have a lot of ideas, but unfortunately I can’t draw. Luckily, we have talented artists who volunteer in the pirate crew.

One of the exciting features at Maritime Race Weekend is that ten runners win a pair of Brooks sneakers when they cross the finish line. In order to be fair, it’s important to us that this prize is given at random. A runner will know whether they won the prize when they get their medal.

When distributing the medals, volunteers don’t know which are the winners. If they win, they see a message hidden inside. We’ve had a treasure chest, a pocket watch and this year, we have a “message in the bottle.” When the medal opens, the message that every runner sees says “Run Happy” — but ten medals will have a red sneaker indicating that they won.

As a double-race weekend, we also require two other medal designs. These will have spinners celebrating our five-year anniversary and encouraging pirates to “GO EAST.” Check out the design sketches for this year’s medal!