If you do a lot of running or cycling etc, you’re bound to eventually land up with a box of collected race medals. Instead of keeping all of them stored up in a box somewhere, how about making a simple holder to display them on a wall in your home, this way you’ll have a visible piece of motivation to get you out on that next training run to shave some time off your personal best.
What You Will Need To Build A Holder For Your Medals
- A plank of wood (it can be stained to match your colour scheme)
- Water Based Wood Stain/Varnish (Optional)
- 15-20 Wood Nails
- White Acrylic Paint
- Fine Paint Brush For Lettering
How To Build The Medal Holder
If you are going to stain your wood then do it first as it is difficult to fit a brush or sponge in between the nails. I used a dark water based stain called Gripseal as it is clean and easy to work with.
Paint it on and allow the coat to dry, it necessary, apply a second or third coat until you have reached your desired colour.
Next I did the text. I have done a number of triathlons so I liked the idea of having three hangers staggered in the Swim, Cycle, Run sequence. I printed out the text in a font and size I thought would be clearly visible. I then traced the text outline using a sewing pattern tool to mark the outline on the wood. Tracing paper should also work to get a faint text outline imprinted onto the wood. The marks are visible when looking up close but you can’t notice them from a step away. I filled in the text with a fine paint brush and white paint.
The medals hang on nails which are partially hammered into the wood. I spaced them about 1cm (0.4″) apart in a straight line. Be sure to hammer them all in the same depth so that the nail heads are all in line.
To hang the block on the wall, either use a mirror hook or simply drill a pilot hole through each side of the medal hanger and screw through the wood and into the wall. I hammered thin nails through the wood and into the wall which I then touched up with some of the wood stain, they are now barely visible.
Walking by your wall of medals everyday gives you all the motivation you need to get training and enter your next race! You’ll also wow your guests with your own little wall of fame.
On a side note, I have accumulated one or two trophies as well so I’m working on an idea to build a small shelf on top of the swim holder to store these as well, I like the idea of keeping them all together.
How do you hang up your race medals? Let us know in the comments section below. You can also send us your pictures and we’ll include them on our page for ideas.