Battle of the Big Bling

From L to R : Texas marathon, Austin marathon (for size comparison), Little Rock marathon

This year I have run two marathons that can lay claim to having the biggest medals in the world - Texas and Little Rock (Arkansas). I can confirm that both chunks of metal are absolute "walk with a stoop" monsters, but which is the bigger of the two?

Surprisingly, it's not that clear-cut - while the Little Rock medal is longer, Texas is slightly wider and almost twice as thick. Both medals weigh in at over 2lbs, and I'm sure both would handily bring down a burglar at 20 paces.

And at the end of the day, what does it really matter? The fact is, I enjoyed both races - I set my marathon PR at Texas back in 2009 (as well as a comedy finish in 2010 having "carb loaded" on beer), and I ran a surprisingly good race on very little training at Little Rock. One is a loop course on rural trail (with wonderful all you can eat pizza at the finish line) while the other is a fun twisting and turning city marathon with some great hills.

So it's too close to call. Both races are fun in different ways, both medals knock the socks off any others I've had, and both can be considered lethal weapons.

Enough said!!!