Most years Alex and I don’t do a big Christmas present. We usually spend the holidays in a small town in Tuscany so a panettone for breakfast is the best gift.

This year I had an idea that I wasn’t sure would work. I wanted to make something out of our race bibs. I’ve saved a race bib from each race either of us had done since 2011, and with 50+ crumpled and muddy bibs piling up I thought there must be a way to use these that isn’t framed art (we have a rule of 1 piece of sport art in the house at a time).

I did some research and found out about All Personalised Blankets and had a play around with their options available.

I’m just going to stop right here and warn everyone that this is one of the sketchiest orders I have ever done. I did not get a draft to approve, nor did I even get a full sized view of what I was creating. I actually went as far as to pay for it with paypal hoping I’d have a bit of help when I inevitably had to demand a refund for poor quality. Spoiler: it all worked out OK but for those types who need the reassurance before ordering something like this, this probably isn’t a project for you.

I scanned all the race bibs in as .jpgs and chose the biggest blanket available and started designing. Any time you are looking at your old races it’s fun, but going through each one and placing it on the blanket thinking about where it fit best was pretty cool. Memories of first 10ks, Santa races, Hen do races, marathons, and Olympic triathlons came back and I decided even if it all went bust it was fun to make.

At the time I ordered there was a 50% discount which was great (right now there is a 10% discount I can see…) and I sent off the order with a small prayer as the payment page was not in English.

Less than a week later the delivery arrived at my desk and lo-and-behold it was perfect. I could not believe how high quality the photos are and as far as fleece blankets go this one is super soft and perfect to wrap up in post run. Even though it’s aggressively draped over our bed right now, I think it’s the perfect way to display some of your running achievements without taking over your whole house. I plan on taking all my active-rest days in/under it and counting it as training.  As soon as it was delivered I obviously couldn’t wait for Christmas and gave it to Alex right away.  Now I need to find him another gift for Christmas morning…