Finally found a way to incorporate my runDisney pins in my running pride wall

For a while now I have been wondering what I should do with the various limited edition Disney pins that I have purchased over the years for the runDisney Disney World Marathon.

I’m not really someone who collects Disney pins (I would rather collect the medals instead of the pins) but I have bought the race pins for almost every runDisney race I have ever done and they have just been sitting on a shelf. I wanted to do something relatively cool with them to put them up on display.

After ages of indecision it finally came to me. When I did the 2014 Disney World Half Marathon with my wife (as part of my 4th Goofy Challenge) I wore a bit of a costume. During that race I wore a Disney foam shield and sword and a cape (although the cape ended up just being hung over one shoulder since it was kid size).

I realized that I could push the pins into the foam of the shield and they would hold well. I also realized that the 3 sides the shield also worked well with the 3 main pins for each of the 3 pins (half, full and Goofy) for the Goofy Challenges I had done. I could put the Goofy Challenge pins along the top, the half marathon pins along one side and the full marathon pins along the other. And any other pins such as 5ks, 10k and Dopey Challenge could find a place on the inside areas of the shield.

Once I hit upon this idea, I figured I had to make sure the pin collection was complete for the Disney races I had done. After a quick tally I found I was missing 4 pins – my first Disney full marathon from 2008 (not part of the Goofy Challenge) and the half, full and Goofy from 2013. For the 2008 race I didn’t know that Disney pins were a thing so I hadn’t bothered to get one. For the 2013 set, I had figured that I wasn’t going to do anything with the pins anyway so why bother to spend the money on them. So now that meant I had to find these pins somewhere knowing that the 2008 was the 15th anniversary of the WDW Marathon and 2013 was the 20th anniversary, meaning that if I could find them, they weren’t going to be cheap.

So long story short on those after scouring eBay and a few online stores I was able to find them, pay way too much for them and the exorbitant shipping to Canada and finally get the complete set of all the run Disney races I have done (so far).

Final tally of the pins to put on:

• 5 Goofy Challenge (2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015)
• 6 WDW Marathon (2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015)
• 5 WDW half marathon (2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015)
• 2 x 5k (2012 (from an old unofficial Dopey Challenge), 2015 (from an official Dopey Challenge)
• 1 Dopey Challenge (2015)
• 1 x 10k (2015)
• 1 Canada flag Mickey ears (gift from my brother from 2015 Dopey Challenge trip>

…wow Disney has a lot of my money…

As I said above I put them on the shield with the Goofy Challenge pins along the top in chronological order left to right.

Then the half marathon pins on the left side chronological top to bottom.

Next the 5 full marathon pins done as part of Goofy Challenges matching chronological top to bottom on the right hand side.

The single marathon I did from 2008 was placed on the tail of the lion.

The Dopey Challenge went on the lion’s crown.

The 2 5ks were put at the bottom near the point of the shield.

The 10k was placed near the bottom as well on one of the feet.

Then the Canada flag Mickey ears went on top of one of the upper paws of the lion.

I then mounted the sword matching the shield in the hand holds on the back so that the tip and hilt were visible when hung on the wall.

The shield was then hung on 2 holders, on which I also put on my pair of Schwing wings that I used as part of the 2014 races as well.

Then it was topped off with the cape.

This was all then hung in with all my other medals and finish certificates as part of my run pride wall.

The rest of the run pride wall includes:

• various running bibs stacked – no real sorting there just most recent on top
• running medals in the center – halves and fulls are split up based on Disney and non-Disney with most recent on top. Goofy medals have 2 pegs to themselves – 1 for past and 1 for the most recent – I love how the 5th anniversary (my 1st Goofy) and the 10th anniversary (my 5th Goofy) are readily visible. Dopey is on the wall on its own. 5k and 10ks on the left. And the extra special 12 hour at the top of the wall in a place of honour.

• Along the top are my Dopey Challenge finisher certificate, finisher certificates for my half and full PR races and a pic of me from about mile 22 of my first marathon.

• Along the right are all my Goofy finisher certificates and my single Disney marathon certificate from 2008.

All in all a pretty busy wall!