If a thing’s worth doing …

… it’s worth doing properly. That’s what I thought when I entered the 5k race on May the 4th, in Trowbridge, called the ‘Sci-fi 5k’*. I talked about entering it here.

If I was going to do this race ‘properly’ then of course I had to do it in fancy dress. Being old school (or just old) I always think of films 4, 5 and 6 as the real Star Wars, so I decided to chose a character from these films. Hmm – a recognisable female from these films? Of course, Princess Leia.

The iconic Princess Leia pose

It’ll be easy to make and run in a Princess Leia costume, I thought. I ignored the many people who suggested Princess Leia in her bikini, and also my children’s many helpful suggestions which included Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar Binks. Thanks, kids

Several weeks later (and only a week until the race) this arrived in the post :-

Piles of white and silver fabric
Piles of white and silver fabric

After several days of pondering about quite how I was make the costume, I finally dived in.

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Going for it

I then went shopping for ‘accessories’.

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Water gun ‘blaster’, blaster paint, ‘boots’ (football socks) and lots of hair accessories

Of course, the most iconic feature of Princess Leia’s appearance is her hair. Her ‘space buns’ as I like to call them. Unfortunately I don’t have long, dark brown hair so the pile of stuff above includes brown wool and I also bought matching hair dye. Yes, I was the mad woman in Superdry matching the hair colours to a ball of wool.**

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First attempt at ‘Space Buns’

I just about have a costume now, and I need to have a dress rehersal. Mr B&T won’t be at the race on Sunday so has told me that I need to have a trial run (literally) so that he can laugh see me running in my costume. I just can’t bring myself to step outside my front door wearing this outfit and run. I live in a small village. Word would get around.

Anyone else think I should have a trial run?

* as in ‘May the Fourth be with you’

** I have since seen that Carrie Fisher is to appear in the new Star Wars film, so maybe I should skip the hair dye and just say I’m Princess Leia from film 7, when she’s old and grey?