Race Memories

Apart from hanging medals on the wall or displaying race bibs in a holder, how do you document your race accomplishments?

If you couldn’t tell, I’m a fan of pictures – so much so, I take a point and shoot camera with me pretty much every where I go. I love documenting life through photos and don’t want to miss an opportunity to capture memories on camera.

When I first began running, I made Shutterfly books for each major race I ran (ie. Half and Full Marathons). The Half Marathon received an 8x8 book and the Full Marathon a 12x12 book. I’m quite a few races behind on my Shutterfly albums, I know I need to get caught up. Unfortunately, I’m so OCD I spend hours working on these books (which isn’t always feasible to accomplish). Ah well, maybe one day!

My other alternative is scrapbooking. I’m much closer to being caught up on my race scrapbooks than I am with the poor Shutterfly albums.

Each page of these two books contain pictures from every race I’ve ever run from 5K’s to mud runs to Half and Full Marathons. How do I keep up with it all? After each race, I fill a folder with race pictures on my computer. Once the pictures have been ordered, the file goes to my hard drive and off my desktop.

Here’s my scrapbooking “suitcase”. I think I need a desk to store all of these items so I don’t have to drag my supplies out every time I scrapbook. Hmmm…now there’s a thought! Oh Jason….hint hint….

I also keep Expo/race bag items together in a container in my closet. Along with pictures from each race, I also like to scrapbook with items from each race’s Expo/swag bag/race bib, course map, etc.  Once I’m finished with that page, I throw all of the extra items I’ll never use away (papers, fliers, etc).

Intro page to book one. :0)

Here’s a few sample pages:

My first ever “Disney Race”, the Castaway Cay 5K in April of 2009. It counts, right? Back in those days, we received a Magical Moments certificate of completion!

The Wine & Dine Half…see, I have my bib and everything!

And just because these two are coming up in a few days…

Rock N Roll New Orleans Full Marathon of 2012…

…and the Princess Half of 2012!  (Secret: I even kept my race box of goodies…you know, the one they give you after the race? I cut out pieces from the box itself to use with these two pages!)

Flipping through these scrapbooks sure brought back a lot of fun memories and great times shared with friends!  Most of these photos were taken by my husband with a DSLR or by me with my point and shoot camera – I rarely purchase official race photos unless I really really like them!

I spent a good bit of my iced-in afternoon on Wednesday catching up on book #2. Currently, I’m up to Goofy’s Challenge of 2013. That’s pretty darn close if you ask me! ;0)

Do you display your race photos in any way? How do you document race accomplishments?

Disclaimer: I did not write this post as an advertisement for Shutterfly, nor did I receive any promotional goods or compensation for my opinion. I just like to share my way of documenting races with you! :0)