October will be over in a week and I have so much to tell you. If your month has been anything like mine (non-stop, on-the-go, hectic …) you’re probably ready for things to slow down a bit, too. But rather than let things push me to my limit, I find ways to relax, blow off a little steam. It’s different for everyone. There are a couple ways I like to de-stress and unwind and guess what—they both involve glass.

I like to run and I like wine. Thanks to science, we might even be able to skip the gym altogether by drinking more red wine. But how, you’re now asking, do these involve glass? To be precise, not every run involves glass nor does wine always involving running. But earlier this month I found the perfect combination when I took part in the Wineglass Half Marathon.

I’ve never wanted a medal more than I wanted this one.

The race took place October 4 in the quaint town of Corning, N.Y. But the day before was the expo and packet pick-up which took place at the Corning Museum of Glass.  Now, I am already beating myself up for not having the time to be able to tour the museum. It had been a terribly long day driving there already, everyone was famished and exhausted and no one (except yours truly) really wanted to wander around and look at glass. So we passed (sigh).

But just being in the vicinity of it all was great. If you’ve ever done a race like this where you pick up your bib in advance (usually the day before) of the start, you probably recall there’s an expo associated with the event. You can look at running gear, learn about future races, grab pre-race snacks and, of course, pick-up the oh-so coveted swag-bag. Here’s where you get your race shirt, bib and any other goodies. In this particular case those goodies included a split of champagne (i.e. New York sparkling wine) and a wine glass—two glass items while in the vicinity of a glass museum, the day before a run. The best of both worlds.

It was all about the glass.

So race morning arrives and it’s perfect weather—45 degrees and partly sunny. The course is flat and fast. My feet are pounding the pavement and I’m thinking about what’s waiting for me at the finish. Sure, sometime that day there’ll be a nice glass of wine (or two), but there’s something more, something else waiting for me when I finish. It’s really the reason I signed up for this race … a glass medal. How could I ever live without a glass medal? So now I have it and it’s my favorite of all my medals. Not because I ran my heart out for it that day, but because it represents things that I love: running, wine and, yes, glass. Cheers!