Darth Vaders, Princess Leias, Star Fleet Command, a Wookie or two, some unlikely looking aliens.......and a bloke in fishnet tights.

Yes, it's that time of the year again, our annual pilgrimage to the Médoc Marathon, the biggest excuse to dress up, go running and drink wine on the French marathon calendar.

So I got dragged round the shops on Friday by my very own MAMIL to purchase some pipe insulation, dowelling, silver paint, cotton wool, an Alice band and a plastic wineglass so he could have a bit of a Blue Peter moment with his fancy dress idea.

This year's marathon theme was science fiction. We do have a fair few costumes already, being the sort of geeks who have been known to frequent sci fi conventions in the past, but none of them would be exactly comfortable for running 42kms in, and having learned his lesson from last year's idiotic plan of running in plate armour, he chose a wiser course this year and made this:

So off he trotted, amidst the host of Star Wars/Trek characters, bizarre aliens, Supermen, Pirates (?), the odd flying saucer and even a Tardis, to start the race.

We watched the whole marathon go past the start and got pics of some great/bizarre/downright weird costumes, like this:

..and this:

and. erm this:

...because every marathon I've ever been to has always had at least one Frenchman in fishnet tights running (I can't imagine how bad the chafing must be!!) usually sporting a pair of comedy breasts and grinning inanely. This year I even saw a Princess Leia with comedy breasts but sadly failed to get a decent photo. And Mike was gutted not to see any women dressed as slave girl Leia from Return of the Jedi, although there were a host of men in drag doing it :-/

I think this guy took Mike's "most uncomfortable costume to run in" prize:

I bet he was glad it wasn't as warm as last year!! And here are pics some of the more bizarre offerings on view:

 Captain America in drag?

 Some of him at least has been assimilated by the borg.....

 

 ummmm.....

Nice touch with the underpants here:

 

Not sure about these guys, Space Rats from Blake's 7, perhaps? ;-)

Leia's really let herself go these days...

Star Fleet officers like to wear drag too.....

 

During the race, we went off and had some lunch, but decided to pass on the 16€ menu:

But I did try some of the beer!

And the old boy managed to run the marathon in about 5 and a half hours which isn't bad for him. Although we missed him at the finish due to the SNO seriously living up to her nickname and annoying not only her sister but innocent bystanders so I had to take her away and find a playground to occupy her.........

Oh and whilst we were away for the weekend, guess what? Tari escaped again. How does she know....???

Warning: hardly any mention of horses in this post......

So we all know I'm a bit of a sci-fi geek. OK, more than a bit, actually a huge geek, have been ever since Kerr Avon first hit our screens back in 1978 (and I remember my parents used to insist on me getting my very boring history homework done every Monday night before I could watch Blake's 7). I love it all, Star Wars, Babylon 5, the Battlestar Galactica reboot, Star Trek, especially the reboot (but not DS9 or Voyager, too boring). Then there's the funny stuff, Red Dwarf, Spaced, Galaxy Quest.....

So how did I manage to miss Firefly for over 10 years? Just watched it for the first time and there's spaceship AND horses! And some complex, dysfunctional  characters, witty dialogue, great quotes and an amazing ship. I love Serenity, in how many other spaceships do you get to see bog roll? Mal Reynolds actually goes to the toilet!! Never saw Roj Blake ever do that........

So obviously, the whole thing got cancelled after just one series. Bummer. Still, at least I have the Blakes 7 reboot to look forward to. It could be amazing if they get it right, so why hasn't anyone asked Joss Whedon to do it? And I want Richard Armitage to play Avon, he's already got the black leather look from Robin Hood and he was a total badass as Thorin Oakenshield......

That's why I love all these series so much really, for the badassery. Who wouldn't want to be able to say stuff like

"If anyone gets nosy, you know, just... shoot 'em."

Or

"Staying with you requires a degree of stupidity of which I no longer feel capable."

Or

"you get more with a kind word and a two-by-four than with just a kind word. "

Or

"Ten thousand light years from nowhere, our planet shot to pieces, people starving, and I'm gonna get us in trouble?"

Plus there's the (often outrageous) outfits, the big guns, the fights (especially in Firefly, I think Mal Reynolds gets beaten up/shot/tortured in pretty much every single episode) the high body count, the heists, the sex, the monsters......

Dunno why people think being a geek is so dull, personally......

And sometimes there's even a horse or two :-)

Now where was I....?

Oops, haven't updated for a while. Got a bit distracted from the horses. (I am, after all, a total geek.)By this....

...and this.....

...and a bit of this (again)

Not to mention the arrival of freeloaders from the UK and therefore more of this......

But we have still been making progress, I've been doing a fair bit of this (can now pick out all 4 feet)

And Ali has been doing lots of this (another comp coming up this weekend)

And the SNO has been getting pretty good at this :-)