This Custom Race Medal Rack Cost Less Than My Last Race Entry

16 feet of steel, 120 medals, zero regrets

There’s a medal hanging above my gym window right now that says “Run To Remember” on a patriotic red-white-and-blue ribbon covered in stars. It’s from Boston. It’s one of many medals hanging out in our home gym, and it cost about 43 cents to hang.

That’s the whole story, really. But let me back up.

Boston’s “Run To Remember” medal

The problem

For years, our medals lived on hooks. Then an Olympic barbell affixed to the wall with curtain rod hooks. Then a few Olympic barbells. They fit the bill for a time, but then adding medals became cumbersome. The curtain rod hooks started to sag under the weight. It was time to find another solution.

I looked at medal racks online and none of them were built for people who’ve accumulated medals over decades. Most hold 20, maybe 30 medals, and they’re priced like it. I needed something that could hold all of them — the ones I already had and every one still to come — without turning into a design project or a four-figure line item.

I also thought, briefly, about steel tension wire strung across the wall. I dropped that idea fast. Medals are heavier than picture frames, and a wire full of race hardware sagging under its own weight looks less like a design choice and more like a mistake waiting to happen.

What I landed on instead: a continuous run of perforated steel bar, mounted flush against the crown molding, running the full 16-foot width of the wall in our gym. It’s rigid, it’s cheap, and it’s not going anywhere.

The finished project: a 16-foot race medal rack

What you need

• Perforated steel flat bar — Everbilt 1-3/8” x 4’ 14-gauge zinc-plated perforated steel bar, $9.18 each. I used four 4’ pieces to get to 16 feet

• Rubber spacers — 1” OD x 3/8” ID x 1” thick rubber spacers, about $10 for 12. These stand the bars off the wall

• Bobby pins — black bobby pins, 300 for $5

• Screws and washers — whatever you’ve got in the garage. The screw head needs to be large enough to not pass through the washer, and every screw should land in a stud.

• Stud finder

• Drill

Total cost: $51.72

How it goes together

1. Find your studs first, not last. Run the stud finder across the full span before you touch the steel. You want to know where your anchor points are before you start cutting or positioning bar, not after.

2. Mount the first piece with a rubber spacer at every stud point. The spacer goes between the wall and the back of the steel bar, with the screw and washer passing through both. This holds the bar slightly proud of the wall, which gives the ribbons room to wrap around the track and hang freely instead of getting pinned flat against the wall.

   

   Closeup of track with rubber spacer behind, washer and screw in front.

3. Butt the next piece up against it — and use the seams to your advantage. Here’s the lucky part of building with 4-foot sections: a few of my seams between pieces landed right on a stud. When that happens, a single screw and washer straddles both pieces and clamps them together, so the seam disappears and the run reads as one continuous piece of track.

4. Keep the whole run tight against the crown molding. Mounting it right up against the crown does two things: it hides the top edge of the bar, and it keeps the whole assembly rigid against the wall instead of floating out where it could flex.

5. Repeat for the full run. Since the spacer rides right up against the crown molding the whole way, the crown does your leveling for you — no level required, just keep the bar snug against it as you go.

6. Hang your medals with bobby pins. This is the part I didn’t expect to work as well as it does. Fold the ribbon over the top of the track at whatever height you want the medal to sit, then clip a bobby pin over the front and back of the ribbon to hold the fold in place. It costs about a nickel per medal in hardware, the height is fully adjustable, and there’s no drilling or dedicated hook per medal — just fold, clip, done.

All set to accept oodles of medals!

What I’d do differently

If I were building this again — and had a second pair of hands — I’d use two 8-foot pieces instead of four 4-foot pieces. Fewer seams, faster install, slightly cleaner look. But 4-foot sections are much easier to maneuver and hold in place solo, and since a couple of my seams happened to land on studs anyway, the tradeoff was worth it for a one-person build.

The recap

Sixteen feet of steel. A dozen rubber spacers. A box of bobby pins. $51.72 total, and room for well over a hundred medals — we actually went through and pulled the duplicates out of our collection so only unique races made the cut, and there’s still plenty of open track left for whatever’s next.

My last race entry fee cost more than this entire wall.