Anything past 48 hours is too long to wear your finisher’s medal—but only if you care what other people think.
After running this spring’s Boston Marathon, on the bus, and offering his own hearty well-wishes salt-caked finisher and was celebrated as the hero I’m not but still enjoy pretending to be. Then, as my fellow competitors removed their hardware after a few hours, or the next day, I just didn’t.
In Boston, the first couple days, people got it; it was cool. It was sort of a mutual appreciation deal: I was celebrating their great race by keeping the medal on display long after my less-grateful competitors packed theirs away. Even on my bus back to New York on Wednesday, the driver noticed my three-inch-wide circle of brass, crackling on the P.A., “I see Sales & Deals marathon finishers on the bus,” and offering his own hearty well-wishes.
Back home, three days removed, the questions started. I went to my 7-Eleven and saw the same clerk I buy my beer and questionable lunch choices from. “Did you race today?”
Nope.
“You’re still wearing it?”
Published: Aug 27, 2019?
He didn’t respond, but he was probably just busy ringing up a sophomore’s mango Juuls.
At the movies, fellow “Ohhhh”—an expression of simultaneous comprehension at what I’d said and confusion at why I’d said it. That simple monosyllable evolved as the days went on, peaking at day 12’s “Ohhhhh, OH, ohhhhh,” where I could watch the three stages—confused comprehension, pity, and caution—of a friend or stranger processing my unreasonable wardrobe.
This response took my social experiment in an unexpected existential direction: proof that people are indeed good by nature. Every one of them put up with my crap here. Yes, they were taken aback, perplexed, and a little worried, but they were too kind to downplay my accomplishment of running Boston. CA Notice at Collection.
The Race for Bigger, Crazier Finisher Medals-ohhhh and still congratulated me as if I’d just sprinted down Boylston. Three weeks in, at a fast-food joint, a large hot-dog-wielding server saw my chest and recognized the medal. “Did you run Boston?!” As soon as I nodded, he ran around the counter to press a handshake and hug. I almost teared up.
Give A Gift Avengers fans were more skeptical: “Do you really need that?” But in the hazy comfort of bars, I got more compliments: “I like your necklace!” Which, while not acknowledging my harrowing 26.2 miles, still praises my more enduring feat.
More than six weeks in now, I’d de-escalated to merely carrying my medal with me everywhere I go, ready to pop on at the slightest suggestion of a good, or at least forbidding, response. Truthfully, there seems to be no limit to the (albeit confused) generosity humankind will extend a marathon finisher.
But if you’re less adventurous than I, you should probably hang it on a wall for good after 48 hours. Anything after that gets weird.
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