Custom Race Medals

A finisher medal says the person completed the distance. It carries the race name, the distance and the year, and never a placing. A placing award says the person won something, and it should be impossible to mistake one for the other on a table.

Leave the age band itself off the age-group award. One design marked “Age Group, First Place” serves every band, so you are not left with spares for a band nobody entered.

This is the question every race director asks, and the honest answer is that it depends on your own event’s history. Finishers are fewer than registrants, late registrations add to the total, and a first-year race has no history at all.

• Start from last year. If the race has run before, last year’s finisher count and this year’s registration pace are the best guide.
• Decide your policy on running out. Some races cap registration at the medal count. Others mail a medal afterward to anyone who misses out.
• Raise it in the quote. Tell us registration is still open and ask what the options are for the quantity. It is far better settled at the start than on race week.

Leftover medals from a dated design cannot be used next year. If that worries you, a design without the year on the medal itself is one way some races handle it, at the cost of a medal that is less of a keepsake.

Three choices define a medal. The shape is the outline, and a custom outline is what separates a designed medal from a disc. The size should suit the distance: people expect more from a half marathon than from a one-mile fun run. The ribbon is the part that shows in every finish-line photograph, so its color should belong to the race artwork.

Multi-distance events often use one design at different sizes or in different colorways, so the 5K, the 10K and the half are clearly a family. Triathlons and duathlons do the same across sprint and longer courses. A race series can design medals that fit together or line up as a set, which gives people a reason to enter every round.

Tell us which of these you have in mind and we will show it on the proof. Runners who collect all the events in a series are also good candidates for pins.

• The race name, the distances and the logo or artwork.
• Your expected number of finishers, and whether registration is still open.
• The placing awards: overall, age groups, teams.
• The race date.

We send a design proof for the medal and the placing awards, and you approve it before anything is produced. Request a quote against your race date. Awards for other events are in the Recognition Library, and volunteer awards covers the people at the water stations.