The Trophy Time Capsule

Recently, my work schedule forced me to put too many intensity sessions back to back, which, unfortunately, resulted in a pair of fried legs. Therefore, to get my snap back, I took a few days off training and, instead, took to the garage, which needed some serious attention and cleaning. There were boxes still piled up from our move in October and, frankly, it just looked like hell. Most of the stuff we hadn’t used in years. There were items piled everywhere. Bike travel boxes were lying open with tools strewn out, and leaves which had blown in over the winter added to the clutter and mess.

It looked like a triathlete’s garage, as my wife puts it…..Neglected. My yard used to look like a triathlete’s yard until I hired a yardman.

I am trying to break my “pack rat” tendencies, so I intended on trashing and giving some of this stuff away.

During my cleaning, I came upon a box labeled “Trophies“. We had been carting this big box around for over ten years and three moves unopened. I did not even remember what was in it, so I got out the box cutter and opened this big trophy time capsule. The trophies were carefully wrapped in paper individually. Most of them were won from races in the early to mid nineties, during my last triathlon and running fling. I looked at them and thought, “Why am I keeping these?” I do not even remember winning some of them. I am not really into displaying this stuff. Most of my medals and awards that I win usually go into the bottom of a drawer or into some dark corner in my closet. These trophies weren’t even attractive.

There have been some cool awards in the past, like those we won at St. Croix last year, and Dana’s most recent carved stone award she won last week at Lonestar. The little iron Buffalo from Buffalo Springs is neat. The “Timmy” (It looks like an Academy Award) from age group nationals is also cool. We have quite a collection of acrylic pyramids from Memphis in May. I think we are starting to build quite a bit of “pyramid power” from them.

I really wanted one of the hand carved Hawaiian Koa salad bowls they give to the top five age groupers at the Ironman World Championships. If I won one, I was planning to have a big meal in it the next day. Shucks, just missed that one. Anyhow, I got the big meal and got to keep a Lava Java coffee mug as a consolation.

I wish there was a place were you could donate these old trophies to where they could possibly be recycled. They could be given to kids or used for other races. Someone might appreciate them. I hate to fill up the landfill with them.

It seems like every race nowadays has a finisher’s medal of some sort. Maybe one or two people wear them on the plane home, but what happens to them when the race is a long forgotten memory? The world is slowly being cluttered with all these awards being delved out. There should be a check box on the race entry if you what a finishers medal. To some folks just finishing is the major goal and these medals are a big deal for them.

I do not know what other folks do with these things but I suppose at some point in time they eventually find their way into the trash. Maybe race directors should put more thought into the awards, make them unique to the location of the race, like the Hawaiian bowl or the Texas star carved from the Texas stone. These would be something worth keeping. If they do not want to invest in an award like this, giving a cash award or gift certificate is a good option.

Anyway, with these trophies, I think I will just take a picture of them and store them digitally on my hard drive. It sure frees up the space in the garage, which, now, looks a lot less cluttered without this big box around.

Now, what about race T-shirts?…Ahh,now that is another story.