Costumes, anyone?

Bam-Bam

In case you haven't noticed the grocery store aisles dripping in candy corn, I'll remind you that Sunday is Halloween.  A day once best known as All Hallows Eve (the night before All Saints Day), now it's best known for bite sized candy bars and weight gain.  So, what's a runner to do?

Run in costume!  Saturday (Oct 30) is the 2nd annual Jazz Half Marathon here in New Orleans and, here in NOLA, any excuse is a good excuse to dress in costume.  A couple of my friends and I decided we'd all dress in 80s attire.  Perhaps not the most amazingly creative, but it's hard to find something that's both easily recognizable and won't cause severe pain when wearing it to run 13.1 miles.  (Um, and I'm actually turning the half into my 20 mile long run.)

Mercury (Hard to see,
but there are wings on
my heels.)

Last year, we ran into the problem of having great costumes which weren't easily recognizable.  (And by we, I mean me.)  My running partner dressed as Bam-Bam from the Flintstones.  Everyone at least knew that she was a cavewoman.  I, on the other hand, dressed as Mercury/Hermes.  (You know, the Greek/Roman god with wings on his heels?)  One guy cheered something like, "Go, greek... uh... goddess!"  Everyone else just cheered for Bam-Bam and I pretended that they meant me.  Not gonna happen again, so 80s it is.

Plus, the added bonus is that 80s is cheap and easy.  (Yes, I will be cheap and easy for Halloween.  And, no, you're not allowed to respond with, "but you're supposed to wear a costume.")  I picked up some brightly colored, over-sized t-shirts at Kmart for 99 cents, I'm borrowing a pair of bright pink leg warmers (a must!) and I'll simply throw on some running capris.  I do have some awesome, HUGE earrings for after the race, but running 20 miles with them will likely make me homicidal.  (It's all fun and games until you stab fellow runners with your accessories.)  The one thing I'm missing is a crimper, but we're working on that.

In case you're looking for some running costume ideas, there's an amazing flickr pool of runners in costumes.  Here are some of my favorites:

Ever raced in costume?  What did you wear?