People's Choice!

Just a quick post to note that my collection of running medals from the Puyallup Fair (oops, the Washington State Fair...) has won a "People's Choice" award. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am about this!

Honestly, absurdly excited and proud of this!!!

Sage Rat Run 2015 -- holy cats, have you seen these medals???

We ran the Sage Rat Run last year -- both the half marathon on the Saturday and the 10K option of the Dirty Rat Run on the Sunday. Both events were fantastic -- really thoughtfully planned, organized, and run. And, of course, AMAZING MEDALS:

 The courses are lovely, the towns are lovely, the people are lovely -- seriously, this was one of my favorite events of 2014, possibly ever. Oh, as a reminder, they have a MASCOT:

Team Wil-Sun with Dusty the Sage Rat

I wanted to run the races again this year, but schedules just aren't working out. But, seriously, you should think seriously about this event. Because … holy cats, have you seen these medals???

This year the medals are pirate themed. Or as they say, piRATe themed. Here's the 6-inch beauty you can earn for completing the half marathon:

2015 Sage Rat Run Half Marathon medal

IT'S GOT A WHALE SKELETON ON IT! IT'S GOT AN OCTOPUS ON IT!!! IT'S GOT A SAGE RAT ON IT!!!! And did I mention it's 6 inches wide??? Awesome. 

Run any distance of the trail run the next day -- 10K, 15K, half marathon -- and you can get this honking Dirty Rat Run medal:

2015 Dirty Rat Run medal

And, of course, if you run both, you get this additional medal:

2015 Sage Rat Run "Rat Deux" medal

I can testify that these are quality medals -- clanky, heavy, brightly colored, and HUGE medals. 

But maybe, you're like us, and you can't attend the Sage Rat Run this year. (Though you should, because it's awesome.)

But for those of us who can't be there in person, we can be there virtually, with their Sage Rat Virtual Run … and earn this gorgeous bling:

2015 Sage Rat Virtual Run medal

The whale spins. Did you hear me? THE WHALE SPINS. SPINS, I SAY!!!! I'm not a big proponent of virtual runs, but I *might* have to run this, because, holy cats, this medal is a beauty.

Okay, hopefully I have you all fired up over the bling. Amusing aside: while writing this post Wil came by and I mentioned the Virtual Run medal. He said, "Virtual run? With a medal? What does it look like?" I showed him, said, "the whale spins" and he said, "Oh, yeah. We're doing that. We're totally doing that."

Bling is a strong force for good, is it not?

Read all about the 2015 Sage Rat Run >

Read about the 2015 Sage Rat Virtual Run >

Register for the 2015 Sage Rat Run >

Cupcake Fun Run Half Marathon race report

Let's start with the important stuff. We raised enough money to buy Mani a racing wheelchair. That's awesome. Of course, when I say "we", I mean Tory, who organized these races. I just signed up and ran.

Wil and I also ran this race a couple of years ago. It's a super cute event run by a woman named Tory. In six years it has grown from a dozen or so runners gathering donations for the local food bank to 200+ runners raising serious cash for a local beneficiary. This year the funds went to Mani, a local athlete, to buy a proper racing wheelchair. I love this race because it's not a "raising money for a cause" -- it's raising money for a person, a person you get to meet at the event. (Not that there's anything wrong with raising money for causes! It's just super cool to meet the person you're there to help out.)

The course runs along the Centennial Trail -- a converted rails-to-trail line accessed near Arlington. So while there's an elevation gain on the way out, it's pretty gradual. We thought that perhaps the timing was off by about 2 minutes last time -- since we were credited with a 2:12 finish (not very likely...).

This time wasn't going to be like the first time. Since I was so sick in February, I really haven't run. As in, I ran/walked 3.14 miles last weekend, but other than that hadn't run a step since February 12. But I knew I would finish, and that that would be enough. Besides, the goal was to a) donate and b) show up. 

(I'm having a little crisis of confidence since I skipped out on the St. Pat's Dash -- AGAIN -- this year ... so I really needed to make myself come out to this race, even if I ended up walking most of it. )

But in the end, it went surprisingly well: 2:21:51. I had set <2:30 as="" goals.="" nbsp="" of="" p="" stretch="" stretchiest="" the="">

out and back, up and down...

I started off feeling like I just didn't have it in me... my usual first-mile feeling. But I made myself stick with it. When I passed one mile, I decided that running intervals was the way to get through the day. Of course, I didn't have any useful timers with me... so I decided to just count breaths. 100 inhales run, then 50 inhales walk. Yeah, pretty short intervals .... but even with the full stops to cross the busy road and to pick up some Red Vines and pretzels at the fuel stop, I still averaged 10'39" per mile overall. 

I really did just plod along, alone for the most part, but feeling okay. Climbing gently the first half, then descending gently the second half -- really the perfect course for me. Had it been the other way round I'm pretty sure I would have just walked the second half.

But as it was, I didn't really get tired until around mile 12, when I let myself give in a little. I had the same "oh god, where's the turn to the finish?" thought, then the same, "oh, it's RIGHT HERE!!!" thought -- which made me pick up my heels and run as fast as my feet would carry me. I heard someone shout "RUNNER!" and then saw a little flurry of activity. The timekeeper said, "C'mon -- let's go Sunny!" which made me smile... The photographer said, "Wow, finishing with a smile!" which made me smile even wider... and another person at the finish said, "Look at that smile!" and I started laughing. Such lavish attention at the finish!

I collected my very handsome medal:

hello cupcake!

had a cupcake:

chocolate mint ... it's wafer thin...

and chatted with a cheered for a few other runners... but I was getting cold and tired and just wanted to go home.

After the race Tory posted a note on Facebook, passing along an anecdote from the race. She and Mani were on the course and a cyclist went by, saying "Great job runners!" Mani said, "That was so cool! He called me a runner!" Awesome.

2015 Cupcake Fun Run medal back

Interested in running the Cupcake Fun Run in the future? Races are held in March (in honor of Tory's birthday!) every year, and there's a different local beneficiary each year. Plus it's a nice, low-key event, with races in distances from 5K to 50K! Learn more about the sweetest race around on the Cupcake Fun Run website: www.cupcakeruns.com

Star Wars Rebel Challenge Weekend recap

I can't believe it's taken this long to write this post -- but you know, life gets messy and all that! But we had an amazing time at the Star Wars Half Marathon weekend at Disneyland.

We flew down on Friday morning, finding the expo very quiet -- which was both a relief (since there were huge lines on Thursday when expo opened) and a little sad (a lot of the merchandise was already long gone). But with a little help from friends who arrived earlier, we got the two things we really wanted, the Star Wars pint glass:

And the medal replica pins:

We picked up a couple of the 2015 runDisney Vinylmation figures -- neither of which was the Minnie chase figure, unfortunately -- and were again a little surprised and disappointed that, as with Avengers, there were no "mini medals".

All told, there *was* a lot of swag... THREE RACE SHIRTS!!!! ... plus the pins and necklace we had preordered...

We then ran a few errands, checked in to our hotel, and arranged to meet up with Suz at Trader Sam's for her "finder's fee":

The pool -- and lunch -- and  a nap -- was calling, so we took it easy the rest of the day, only venturing into the parks in the evening. (Frozen Fun? Sure!)

Saturday morning, bright and early, we made the trek across Downtown Disney to the starting area for the Star Wars 10K. Really fun to see all the costumes as we made our way up to corral B.

By the time we got there, the hosts were already well into their chatter, and had been joined by C-3PO and R2-D2. The hosts were wearing costumes -- cute! -- and soon introduced the national anthem, and then the wheelers left. It occurred to me that the wheelers would finish the 10K circuit before the last corral started.

Corral A left very shortly behind the wheelers, and then it was our turn to move up. The corrals felt large, but not too crowded. We took off to a nice animation:

... but there was some clumping just before the start, as a lot of people clearly tried to get clearer versions of this shot:

(On Sunday I noticed that the hosts weren't in costume... and there were no characters on the stage when we passed. Disney is Very Good at making quick changes...)

I loved the 10K course -- we did a half loop of the parks first, which gave us nice broad roads to run on while the pack stretched out a little. Then we turned and ran into the park, which I especially liked because I didn't think we'd ever been backstage in that area before. In fact, I got completely turned around and wasn't sure where I was. Another benefit of this course: I can't imagine that they needed to sweep many people, since the runners were off the public streets before mile 2.

LOVE this 10K course!

Favorite race highlight: running through California Adventure, we saw a LOOOOOONNNNGGGG line for a character photo -- with BOBA FETT! As we got closer, I shouted "I LOVE YOU BOBA FETT" and he turned to look at me, and did a little nod of the head... you know, the one that sets all the girls' hearts a-flutter...

After all the waffling about my costume, I was really happy with it -- though my thought of making the bandolier bag lightweight sorta backfired -- it was so light that it was difficult to actually keep on, so I spent much of the 10K holding on to it so it didn't fall off. For the half, I simply pinned the bag down, and pinned the bandolier to my shoulder and back so it didn't move around. Problem solved.

We didn't manage to attract many photos during the race (hey, it's only a 10K), but we picked up our medals and snapped this photo:

We were sitting on our balcony, planning out the rest of our day, when we decided that rather than having a nap first, we'd go straight to the parks. When we got there, we discovered it was actually Extra Magic Hours... but the very nice castmember took a look at us, with our medals and bibs and outfits, and let us go in. Very nice.

We spent a quick hour riding all of "our" rides, and then went back for a swim an a nap.

(Do you see a pattern? Swimming and naps always feature pretty highly in our Disneyland trips...)

Sunday was another Very Early Morning -- the 5:30 starts for runDisney events is a little hard to get used to! But we walked over to the start area again. More amazing costumes -- none of which I captured on film (because I always feel funny about that). Yeah, I'm a dork.

A little trouble getting into Corral B -- people weren't moving up, so we couldn't squeeze into the back, but we knew that as soon as the corral was called forward, we would be fine.

The start was pretty uneventful, other than the fact that a guy in a FULL CHEWBACCA SUIT started in the same corral, which made me feel like I just hadn't tried hard enough (ha!). BTW, the guy in the suit was near us for much of the race. As Wil pointed out, maybe the guy is training to run Badwater and needed to practice running in crazy heat?

Star Wars Half Marathon course map

The half marathon course was different again and I really liked that we entered the park backstage in a new area. I love that Disney makes different courses for each of their events. Other than the all-too-brief time in the parks (again, no Castle run-through), my favorite part of the course was when we ran down what I assume was the old Main Street in Garden Grove. There was a cute Mexican restaurant with a guy standing outside dressed as Elvis. When we go back down in May for Tinker Bell, we're going there for dunner one night.

For obvious reasons, there were more spectators out for the half -- we did run past one high school band that had a pretty amazing tauntaun mascot costume, and another where the cheerleaders got Very Excited about my Chewie-esque costume and did a lot of shrieking. Bless.

Having not run long since, oh, the Avengers Half Marathon back in November, I got pretty tired out by mile 10. But Wil kept us moving (and, hey, we wanted to stick with the guy in the Chewie suit!), and we crossed the finish line hand-in-hand and with a nice shout out in a not-too-shabby 2:32.

Chewie gets a medal!!!

Amusing: as we headed down the home stretch, a guy shouted to Wil: "Don't let the Wookiee win!" Sadly, due to the vagaries of timing, Wil "beat" me (place-wise) both days... despite posting identical times. Sigh.

Things we loved:
- all the costumes!
- the 10K course was great. (Between Tinker Bell and Star Wars, this was by far the better 10K course.)
- the half marathon medal -- we didn't wear it much (preferring to wear the Rebel Challenge medal in the parks), but having it be a replica of the Yavin medal is fantastic.
- stormtroopers stationed on the ramps of the Carousel of Progress
- multiple stormtrooper photo op stations during the half marathon
- the "free hugs" Chewie and Stormtrooper who stood out on Harbor Boulevard ALL MORNING during the half
- the cosplay group out during the half -- loved seeing so many different costumes, all so well done!

Room for improvement:
- personally, I could, I dunno, TRAIN for a race again someday...
- post-race photo ops -- I love when they put up "selfie backgrounds" so you can take your own post-race pic... but I can see that that makes Marathonfoto unhappy...

And the usual wishes:
- more characters
- more time in the parks
- more entertainment outside of the parks

Chewie finally gets a medal!!!

This morning, not long after the Wine and Dine Half Marathon expo opened, pictures of the Star Wars Half Marathon medals started showing up on Facebook. Here's one from Sarah Reardon:

 

My initial response was that the 10K medal is super cool, the Half Marathon medal is pretty cool, and the Rebel Challenge medal is "meh". (Though I have been informed that the Yoda center reverses to Vader... 

But then I looked more closely... 

Good heavens, is that "fur"? Is that... a BANDOLIER???? Sweet Vader... THAT'S THE YAVIN MEDAL!!!! THEY'VE MADE THE MEDAL AS CHEWBACCA'S MISSING MEDAL FROM YAVIN!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, seriously... this is huge.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Think back to the final scene from "Star Wars". The Death Star has been destroyed, and the Rebels return to Yavin for a celebration. Everyone is in the main hall, Princess Leia is all dolled up, and Luke, Han, and Chewie march down the center aisle.

They all look proud, excited, happy. Happy days are here again.

Leia puts a medal on Luke. Leia puts a medal on Han. Then they all turn and face the applauding masses.

Did you see what happened there? Chewbacca... copilot of the Millennium Falcon, re-builder of C3PO, and perennial chess-winner DIDN'T GET A MEDAL.

Now, clearly, I'm not alone in noticing this injustice. There's a whole Internet movement around Chewie and his medal. 

found on

fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?????

found on themovieblog.com 

Love this example: a guy named Adywan created "Star Wars Revisited" -- a project where he restored and enhanced EVERY FRAME of the first Star Wars movie… cleaning it up and restoring it without adding random garbage. In his version, Chewie ALSO gets a medal. 6 Pieces of Fan Art That Are Better Than the Original | Cracked.com

6 Pieces of Fan Art That Are Better Than the Original | Cracked.com

And this much simpler, but no less effective piece of fan art on @deviantART:

Chewbacca Finally Gets His Medal by CyberDrone.devian... on @deviantART

Now, apparently, at the MTV Movie Awards in 1997, Carrie Fischer presented Chewbacca with a medal as part of a "Lifetime Achievement Award" (for Carrie Fischer? for Chewie???)

But, clearly .... THAT'S NOT THE RIGHT MEDAL. That's a cheap-ass MTV medal. No one wants that. THIS is the Yavin Medal.

from EntertainmentEarth.com (And, no, they're sold out. Sadly.)

not bad, runDisney, not bad at all

Now, I was excited about this race. But I'm SO PLEASED by this. So. Very. Pleased.

found on geekcentralstation.blogspot.com

Are you running one of the Star Wars Half Marathon Weekend races? What do you think of the medals?