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....???

Finally got Mike in the saddle......

Yep, after all these years he came out for a hack with me for the first time this morning

He's not taking up riding, you understand, it's just a bit of cross training cos apparently he needs to work on his abs and upper body strength for running......

 

Well, Gandalf certainly gave his arms a workout, having sussed straight away this guy doesn't really know what he's doing and he could therefore stuff his face at every opportunity. Ches was good as gold, knowing I won't let him get his head down out on a hack, and merely confined himself to trying to steal some of G's ill gotten gains directly from his gob

We did a nice little amble in the sunshine, nothing too strenuous first time out, map & pics here:
He wasn't too creaky afterwards either, although has now gone out for a run, muttering about having to get his muscles back into the right shape.....

First of many, I hope :-)