“Why run as a stormtrooper? What a way to celebrate the 4th of May… Star Wars Day!
Deciding to run the Rotorua Marathon in a full Stormtrooper costume was an idea put out by another local Wellington runner, and I thought it was such a crazy idea, that it might actually be fun!
I hadn’t met Mark before and he put me onto where to get the costume so that we matched. I had also never done the Rotorua event before, so it was great to experience another part of the country that I hadn’t previously seen.
Once we got the costumes we went for a few short runs together in them to make sure they were comfortable enough to run in, and they were surprisingly okay. A couple of internal mods to the helmets to stop them bouncing around and we were sorted! We were even able to have our hydration packs on underneath so we were never short of food or drink.
On the day it was totally awesome. Everyone loved our costumes and we had so many requests for photos, we almost missed our start time! Then going around the back of the lake there were some people playing instruments. Someone with bagpipes started playing Darth Vader’s Imperial March as we decided to slow down and march past. That was so choice!
The time wasn’t even on the radar.. we didn’t care how long we took to finish as long as we had fun, enjoyed ourselves, and loved the experience – which we really did! Plus winning the prize for the best costume at the prizegiving was the icing on the cake for a great day out.
We might do it again, who knows? Events on the 4th of May don’t happen very often…”
Paul @scoobydoo_nz
a.k.a The Stormtrooper
(Wellington)
–
Portraits of Runners + their stories
@RunnersNZ
