Monday, January 19, 2015

Star Wars Half Marathon - Pre Race

Yesterday Ryan and I ran the Inaugural Star Wars Half Marathon at Disneyland. This was Ryan's third half marathon in three months (the Avenger's Half Marathon in November, the San Diego Holiday Half Marathon in December, and then this race). Since he had already PR'ed in the previous two races, we decided we would take this one easy and stop for character shots and photo ops along the way!

Aunt Beru and Darth Vader after finishing!

But let's not get ahead of myself. If you are familiar with runDisney events, then you know the race isn't the only thing going on. It seems like there is always something happenin' during a runDisney weekend! [Sure, the bling is great, but the PEOPLE are what MAKE the weekend for me!]

Because I wasn't sure how my body would feel after the Dopey Challenge (which just concluded a week ago - holy crapoly, can we really just digest that?!), we decided to "just" sign up for the half marathon (as opposed to the Rebel Challenge which included the 10K on Saturday morning as well as the half marathon on Sunday morning or throwing in the 5K on Friday morning).

Since I don't work on Fridays and my body was feeling AMAZING after the WDW races, it meant I had the day open to help out at the Expo! I started out at the Pro Compression booth with Suzanne from about 11:45am-2:15pm. After that I worked at the Sparkle Athletic booth from 2:30-8pm. I was THRILLED to have so many friends (new and old) stop by and say HI while they were at the Expo!

RUN ALL DAY (and run ALL THE RACES)!

Suzanne and I (although this picture is from Saturday,
since we were too busy on Friday selling all the socks to grab a
picture of us working together)

Elise, Laurie, Carrie and I

In between working at the two booths I had a quick second to give hugs and take a selfie at the Sparkly Soul booth, as well as take a souvenir picture at a runDisney booth (you show that you follow runDisney on Instagram and they will take your picture in front of the green screen for you {adding the background and light saber} to download free of charge).

Sparkly Soul Selfie!

I decided to go with the good guys for this picture!

Seeing as I was already up at the parks (and my pass wasn't blacked out), Jillian and I decided to head over to grab some dinner and watch the fireworks. She was running the 10K on Saturday morning (which she PR'ed by the way!), so after the fireworks we decided to head home.

Small Castle Problems!
Photo Credit: Jillian


Sometimes the balloons just MAKE the shot!

The fireworks show is only about 5 minutes long, but
Jillian and I had a great time!

Although I didn't stay up in Anaheim Friday night (it is hard for me to justify spending money on a hotel when we live like 45 minutes away), Ryan and I were on our way back up there Saturday morning. Traffic wasn't our friend (SoCal drivers don't know how to drive around "bends" so it always slows down through Dana Point), so we were slightly late to the TweetUp Dani (of Weight Off My Shoulders) and Linzie (of Sharp Endurance) were hosting. I was still able to chat with a bunch of friends, snap some pictures, and even win a Sparkly Soul headband (SCORE!).

Me and the AMAZING hosts!

The crew! (I guess I missed the BLUE memo...)
Photo Credit: Sharp Endurance (Ryan took the picture)

Ryan and I still needed to head over to the Expo to pick up our bibs (now that runDisney requires you to personally pick up your stuff, I wouldn't have been able to grab Ryan's on Friday when I worked, so I just figured we would both grab everything on Saturday). Thankfully the lines were short and it was easy-peasy to pick up everything we needed.

Ryan LOVES Star Wars so I knew this would be an easy race to talk him into!

Let the Wookiee Win!

runDisney does a GREAT job with the details!

We made sure to take some of the free photo ops that were set up throughout the Expo. (Sometimes I am really lacking on the pictures {how craptastic of me?!}, especially for trying to be a blogger, but thankfully today was not one of those days!)

Who doesn't love a photo booth with props?!

(Let me be totally honest, I think I laughed for a good 5 minutes when I pulled these pictures up on my phone... THEY ARE PERFECT!!)

I decided I needed to cross over to the dark side for my second picture!
What do you think? Can I pull off scary/ evil?!

Ryan picked the rebel alliance (of course), but might have needed an axe instead
of a light saber (the "long hair don't care" is getting a bit out of control ;) )

And how could I conclude my PRE RACE post without mentioning my costume?! I didn't want to go as something that everyone else was doing... I figured that 75% of the females would go as some form of Princess Leia and the rest would probably be an Ewok. So here comes the obscure character research :)

Source

I knew going as Aunt Beru would probably be a stretch, but I wanted to try and give it my best! SPOILER ALERT: As I imagined, I was the ONLY Aunt Beru (that I saw) on the course and much to my surprise there were actually quite a few people who figured out who I was!

Source

Source

I ended up finding a brown shirt that I added a collar to (out of felt from a Dollar Store scarf) and a jean jacket (yes, I know, running in a jean jacket probably isn't the best idea, but it was for the costume ;) and thankfully it never got too hot). Even though Aunt Beru wore a long dress in the movies, I figured I could adjust it slightly and wear my brown Sparkly Athletic skirt and my black on black Pro Compression Marathon socks. And the smart Kara gave me the idea for the Blue Milk jug. I couldn't find any plastic jugs at any of the nearby Dollar Stores (weird, huh?!) so I ended up having to get a legit coffee carafe from a local thrift store - at least it was blue (I did add the "Blue Milk" sign on it). Also, I wasn't sure how many folks would know who I was, so I decided I would run with a sign (originally I was thinking of a name tag, but thought it might not be big enough to read while running by). The sign said "I'm Aunt Beru... Luke's Aunt... Before she gets burnt to a crisp...".

Flat Aunt Beru

If I am going to get into character, I might as well go ALL THE WAY, right?! Well, Aunt Beru had short hair... I wasn't going to chop mine for the race, but I decided I would try and pin it up to make it look like I had a bob. I mean a pony tail would have just looked silly, HA! Here comes #AllTheHairSpray and TONS of bobby pins!

Hair helmet! (Tried making it look like I had bangs, but
I guess it more looks like a bad comb-over ;) )

You will have to wait until tomorrow's race recap to hear about the actual race, but shoot doggy, there is so much outside of the 13.1 miles that I felt it deserved its own post :)

Do you know who Aunt Beru is? 

2 comments:

Jennifer K. said...

That slow down in Dana Point on the 405 has boggled my mind for years! Suddenly everyone slows down, then suddenly it all opens up again.

Unknown said...

I so wish I had gotten to do this set of races. I LOVE STAR WARS. And the fact that you were Aunt Beru (with the blue milk) was pure genius. GENIUS