The Star Wars Half Marathon weekend begins today with the start of the expo. I’ll be cheering at the Star Wars 5K tomorrow and I’m getting ready for my two races.
Being race ready means I have a wicked playlist. For the Star Wars Half, I’ve added a few tracks, including Cantina Band, and Throne Room/End Titles.
But there are some Disney songs that often end up on my running playlists
Favorite New Song | Immortals (Fall Out Boy)
Although Big Hero 6 has only been out since November, this is well on its way to being a staple of my running playlists.
Guilty Pleasure | Let it Go (Idina Menzel)
This has been on my running playlists for a year now, starting with the playlist I created for the Tinker Bell Half Marathon.
Old Favorite | I’ll Make a Man out of You (Donny Osmond)
I haven’t seen a Disney running playlist yet that doesn’t include this song. If you need pre-gym inspiration, you should watch the video clip too.
An Exhausting 30-minute Run in one Song | Soundsational Parade
If I really want a fast-paced run (for me), I can always play the entire soundtrack from Disneyland’s Soundsational Parade. That beat never lets up!
More Disney Running Songs
Do you use Spotify? Although I rarely run listening only to Disney music, I’ve put a selection of my standard upbeat Disney favorites on my Disney Running Playlist.
Here it is, a running costume I am very excited about! PIGS IN SPACE!
I’m ready to run as part of the Swinetrek Crew!
Yes, this is totally in a different direction than my droid 10K costume. Why Pigs in Space? So many good reasons. Dressing as a muppet forces you to refuse to take your race too seriously. How can you not smile?
There’s also no pressure. Pigs are allowed to be slow. Or tired. Or goofy. Actually. They’re just plain fun!
There are so many great costume elements to the Pigs in Space uniforms and they look great when you have a group.
I’m a big fan of the original Muppet Show and I love the Sci-fi parody sketch Pigs in Space.
But if you really need a solid Star Wars connection to justify the amazingly fun costumes, the Stars of Star Wars— Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, R2-D2 and Chewbacca— were guest stars on an episode of the Muppet Show.
And of course, they had to show up on the Swinetrek on Pigs in Space. A highlight has got to be tap dancing C-3PO (yay Anthony Daniels).
“When you wish upon a Star” performed by the Muppets, Stars of Star Wars and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker’s more musical cousin)
You really get the sense that Mark Hamill (“cousin” of Luke) is just having fun on the show.
Star Wars and the Muppets are now both owned by Disney, but back when this episode was filmed, Empire Strikes Back hadn’t even come out.
This is amazing because the episode ends with a rousing rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star” complete with castle and fireworks.
If you like Muppets, you should really watch the entire episode. On a side note, Miss Piggy is performed by Frank Oz, the puppeteer and voice behind Yoda.
Pigs in Space Running Costume Details
Shirt | just a lavender (or grey) running shirt. After all, we want to make sure we are comfortable during the half marathon.
The female Pigs in Space costume (Miss Piggy’s) varies from lavender to pink during the course of the show. Typical of Piggy to constantly change her wardrobe.
Pigs in Space Logos in progress
Logo | Gotta love the logo. We made them out of felt, which was fairly simple.
When we set out to find the logo so we could create our own, we ended up finding a template and tutorial on Jade Flower’s blog. I love the internet… if it’s geeky, you can find it. The stars we bought as iron-on patches, but we sewed them on instead.
Pigs in Space First Mate Piggy and Captain Link Hogthrob: The female Swinetrek uniform varies from the male Swinetrek uniform.
Skirt/shorts | For us women, we just sewed our sparkle skirts using the same tutorial from Beauty Still Remains that I used for my Mousketeer skirt except with gathered ruffles instead of pleats. For the guys, we found silvery colored shorts (amazingly) and then sewed silvery sparkle stripes on the side.
Ears | To attatch the ears, I opted for a 60’s style wide headband, common to some Miss Piggy has sported in the past. The ears were made out of felt, and then attached to the headband, a metallic silver stretchy fabric.
Headbands were not an option for the guys, whose ears are attached to their running caps. With silver reflective stripes, they look great!
The guys modeling their Pigs in Space running costumes.
Collar and Epaulettes | We almost skipped the ridiculous silver epaulettes, but they’re kind of classic.
The epaulettes are basically stuffed round tubes of fabric and the collar is a straight stuffed tube. We opted for a lightweight metallic fabric — lighter than the stretch we used for the headband — so we only attached the collar to the front of the shirt. If you attach it to the back, you can’t get it over your head.
Accessories | No one wanted to run in gloves, but we designed these silver gauntlets that capture the retro flare of the originals. They are made of a very stiff, thick fabric, almost like faux leather. Undo the velcro and they can lay flat so if anyone gets annoyed while running, they can easily be taken off and tucked into a running belt.
Only Dad is sporting the silver cape worn by Pigs in Space Captain Link Hogthrob. He’s doing a shorter distance and it won’t likely get cumbersome for him. It looks glorious, so I think Jason is a little jealous (as we know from his superman running costume, he’s fond of capes).
I’m leaving today for the Star Wars Half Marathon weekend and I’m really looking forward to the Rebel Challenge. Can’t wait! And I’m totally ready to rock this challenge.
Jason is in A corral.. but maybe when I take my phone out to snap photos with characters, I can virtually know where he is. Runner tracking could be fun!
Notice the RunDisney shoes? This is only the second time I’ve put the ribbon laces on the Cinderella shoes (the first was the Freedomthon). I’ve been trying to keep them nice!
Tomorrow I’ll post about my costume for the Star Wars Half Marathon (check out my 10K costume). I’ll be in California soon!
Only 3 days until the start of the Star Wars Half Marathon weekend and I’m pretty excited about my costume for the first half of the Rebel Challenge, the Star Wars 10K!
I based it off the droid that does the advertisements in the queue area and the safety spiel for the new Star Tours: The Adventures Continue.
I got the idea back in November, but I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to pull it off— I was pretty focused on making the costumes for the Star Wars Half (reveal soon). But I’m running two races so I really wanted two costumes.
The costume is made out of stretchy spandex type fabric and I didn’t try to completely match the Aly San San droid. It’s pretty comfy to wear since everything is made out of athletic type fabric anyway.
Star Tours Running Costume details
1) Base layers | Grey running tights and a grey running shirt. I prefer running in capris. Although the long sleeve grey running shirt looks great, I’ll probably swap it with a grey short sleeve shirt (Calfornia weather, yay).
Adding the orange stripe to the bottom of the running skirt (Use lots of pins! …and then realize the fabric will shift and stretch anyway…)
2) Running skirt | I drafted the pattern (with help) off another athletic skirt and made the skirt in blue and then added the orange stripe at the bottom. This proved trickier than expected because the fabric was so freakin’ stretchy and slippery.
Despite its annoying nature, the stretch was useful when it came to the waistband, because I could use the fabric itself instead of adding elastic.
3) Vest thing | Instead of trying to incorporate colored panels directly onto the front of a grey shirt, I opted to make it part of a vest. I modified a shirt pattern into a vest pattern, a process that made me a little crazy when one of the patten pieces I made mysteriously disappeared (it still hasn’t reappeared).
Unfinished costume with the skirt and front blue panels (plus Star Tours logo!)
The back is just plain blue. For the front I cut the pattern in half at a slight angle (and added the seam allowance back in) to get the two orange and blue panels. After sewing it all up, I had to add in some darts so it would fit just a little better .
For the actual race, the front bottom of the vest will be secured by the top two pins holding my bib number.
4) Logo | this was the most important part of the costume! The vest looked like a funky construction worker outfit before the logo was added.
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue logos
I made it much larger than the proportions of the original. This makes it way easier to see and more recognizable. A larger image was also much easier to cut out of the stretchy fabric of doom.
I had to apply fusible interfacing to the fabric before it would behave enough to get a decently straight cut logo.
After finding a logo to use (Did you know the logo for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is different from the original?), I transfered it to paper and cut out only half of the logo to use and pinned it to the fabric. Using only half ensured that the two sides would be the same after cutting it out.
5) Accessories | With such stretchy material, it was easy to make an orange headband. I also added two blue cuffs that just slide on.
This was by far the hardest run costume I’ve ever sewn, and way harder than the Mouseketeer running costume I sported last year at Tinker Bell Half.
The costumes we sewed for the Star Wars Half (reveal soon) were not as difficult for me on a technical level, although they have many more elements to them. They also have a completely different flavor!
I always love seeing what costumes people come up with and I know there will be lots of amazing Star Wars costumes but I’m wondering… will I see any fellow Star Tours people out on the course?
When I ran Tink last year, we stayed with friends in Irvine, CA. We got up at 2:30 am in order to have breakfast, get ready, and drive to Anaheim to get to the start line of the race.
I’m super excited for the Star Wars Half Marathon Weekend… but not for the morning alarms.
I’ve been fighting a cold since Christmas, which has rather interrupted my preparations for the Star Wars Rebel Challenge. I did manage to go on a longer run last week (around 9 miles), but with less than two weeks to go until the half marathon, it looks like that will have to be my last long run.
I’ve also been hard at work on our running costumes. I’ll post more pictures soon, but here’s a preview and a clue….
Do you recognize what this is?
I’m getting super excited! Now that I’m feeling better, I’m back to running and although I missed doing my last 14 mile training run, I’m still pretty confident about the upcoming race(s).
After all, I did run 13.1 miles in December for the Holiday Half. I’m only a little nervous because this is my very first challenge, running back-to-back race days. I hope I don’t feel too tired after the 10K!
Corral placements were posted a few weeks ago and my Rebel Challenge corral assignment is C corral.
I submitted my 10K time from the Run for Sight and I’m happy with the placement. I was in C corral last year for Tinkerbell and it worked out perfectly.
Unsurprisingly, Jason will be in A corral for the half marathon after submitting his time from Rock ‘N Roll Portland. Although he’s super fast, his training has been even more interrupted than mine as he fights knee issues. Luckily, he’s not looking for a PR at a runDisney race.
Mom submitted a terrific 10K time as well. Her corral assignment for the half marathon is C corral like me, so there will be no need for corral switching. She’s gotten so much faster that she’s now a favorite run partner of mine… and probably the only reason I went running the past couple of days.
As we get closer to the date, I’m sure I’ll be posting more soon!
The Avenger’s Half Marathon was this past weekend (it looked amazing) and the Star Wars Half Marathon Medals were officially announced so I’m runDisney crazy right now.
So this seems like a good time for a story from the 2014 Tinker Bell Half Marathon, one I promised in my recap that I would tell eventually.
Around the halfway point of the Tinker Bell Half Marathon, Perrin and I concocted the idea for the Mile 8 drink.
Keep in mind, I get a little loopy when running long distances.
We were outside the parks running when we passed a sign that read “Candy from Strangers” and a tent where people were handing out redvines and orange slices.
The nice people from MousePlanet handing out oranges & redvines (photo found on MousePlanet, credit: Tony Phoenix.)
I was tired and grateful. We both took some and stuffed both redvines and orange in our mouth. We marveled at how wonderful the combination of flavor was and how it was the best thing we’d ever tasted.
While trying to keep my feet moving, I conspired with Perrin on how we could bring this wondrous flavor to a wider audience. We got on the topic of using redvines as straws and suddenly, dawning inspiration came.
It was truly a stupendous Eureka moment.
Orange Juice.
Orange Juice + Redvine Straw= obviously the most delicious concoction known to humankind
We both agreed that this was truly an inspired and fabulous idea destined for culinary greatness and we set about trying to name our creation.
After spending a couple of miles rhapsodizing about how delicious this drink would be, something occurred to me.
Maybe, just maybe, we only think this is a good idea.
Maybe this is only something that sounds good to tired people past mile 8 of a half marathon.
Guys, if you didn’t realize, the Star Wars Half Marathon medal is even better than you thought.
So back in August, I wrote this post, basically saying that I hoped finishing the rebel challenge felt something like the ceremony at the end of Star Wars (original movie guys).
So I went today to check if all the runners at the RunDisney Wine and Dine Half had reported spotting the Star Wars Half Marathon weekend medals and I wasn’t disappointed!
It looks like the Rebel Challenge medal spins, with Darth Vader on one side and Yoda on the other. I can’t wait until Disney gets an official announcement up with high-quality photos.
Not that I mind all the tweeters/instagrammers posting photos. You guys are my heroes.
And when I get my Rebel Challenge medal, I kind of want throne room music as well, if possible.
After this past weekend, I’m getting a little nervous about the idea of running two races in two days. It looks good on paper…
And I didn’t get my long 9.5 mile run in this past weekend as hoped. I did go for a 6 mile difficult run on the beach.
The sand wasn’t as hard packed as we would have liked, being just after high tide, and the ground was sloped in areas.
Although I wasn’t feeling great for the first half of the run, it was still fun and kinda cool to mix it up a bit. If I only judge by time, then I did my long run because it took me a long time….
Looking forward to the Star Wars Rebel Challenge and Vancouver Rock n Roll!
Kallen in Motion 