The following letter appeared in the May 2000 issue of Runner's World, and is reproduced 
here by kind permission of that magazine's editor Steven Seaton. Steven comments: "It is a 
common lament in our marketplace, since the average club runner does about two races a month 
and those medals soon accumulate." He thinks he has trouble: swimming is a multi-event and 
multi-medal sport and if you're not careful those suitcases just keep filling up.

  I can cope with the aches, pains, mud, exhaustion, washing, expense, hassle, occasional 
  monotony, frequent bowel actions, blisters, journeys, getting lost, cold, shin splints, 
  nagging from the missus, dog bites, falls, numb fingers, early mornings, stitches and 
  breathlessness caused by running, due to their being offset by the pleasure, quiet, calm,
  tranquillity, picturesque countryside, fitness, feeling of well-being, exhilaration, 
  achievement, fun, and enjoyment. of running.

  However, my usual placidity has been shattered by my inability to get any clean underwear 
  due to my top drawer being full of large unwieldy medals and their ribbons.  I  have  
  tried hypnotism and meditation, but I live in constant fear that one day I will be unable 
  to see, let alone open, my top drawer, and will fall prey to a horrific fate at the hands 
  of the Harvel 5 or the Tunbridge Wells Half.

  In an effort to stave off my untimely demise, has anyone ever found a use for these useless 
  bits of junk, or am I the only one who would rather have a bar of chocolate and a cup of 
  tea when they finish a race?

  Andy Kirby--by e-mail.

Well, there we have the problem in a nutshell. Normally clean adults are being forced to go 
onto the streets in dirty underwear because their drawers are filling up with medals, 
commemorative or place. Not only that, the medals are getting bigger and heavier, chunkier, 
and therefore more dangerous. We have not heard yet of houses collapsing under the weight 
of medals being stored in lofts, but several senior masters swimmers are reported to have 
grafted, without planning permission, trophy rooms onto their houses so that they can 
divorce their hobby from their normal lives before their spouses divorce them.

Readers who do not believe this problem are advised to log onto http://freespace. virgin. 
net/swim.site/ PHOTOFWK/cbenfold.htm, where they will see a smiling Cecil Benfold 
surrounded by trophies of all shapes, colours, and sizes, while some of his more 
predatory winnings loop themselves menacingly around his neck. How the more successful, 
the winningest, masters wimmers cope with this problem is a mystery.

I have had to find a solution to this problem because 1 am forbidden to have more than a 
small attache case devoted to medals, and after 10 years in masters swimming the case has 
become full, it has to be said of largely second and third place medals. I have therefore 
had to limit my swimming appearances to events in which I am unlikely to place, or to 
compete in meets where  the medals  are particularly small, or better still hard to 
obtain. Sometimes this policy fails, as it did in the US championships where they medal 
down to 10th place, and though I tactically swam for the minor placing I still had to 
take a medal away in one or two events.

Another solution is actually to return medals to a promoter for recycling. But in their 
anxiety to make their meets better thought of promoters have begun to have medals made for 
the occasion so that they cannot be used again. Most masters swimmers know the year, if not 
the date, and are not to be fobbed off with out of date hardware.

It is always open to us not to collect the darn things at all, but this has two unintended 
consequences. You might save your joists or your underwear, but you will upset the helpers 
whose thankless task it is to award medals while the meet is in progress. You will also 
appear supercilious, haughty, so clever that while others are striving with might and main 
to place in the top 6 you are so glutted with success and achievement that you can't be 
bothered to join the medal queue with the hoi polloi. Not the kind ofreputation we want to 
have at all.

We are left with no choice really: just keep taking the medals.

Andy Wilson

[Copyright (c) 2000 Watermarks]