Cheshire Cat style

Halloween is 1 of my least favorite holidays.  Call me a fuddy duddy, but I'm just not such a huge fan of dressing up in costume and being...someone else.

But I don't know...there's something about putting on fun clothes for a race. It kind of makes the whole thing feel less like strenuous exercise and more like 1 giant party. (Right?)

I knew I wanted to dress funky for the San Jose Rock 'n' Roll and Las Vegas Rock 'n' Roll half marathons. And before I'd even finished those 2 half marathons, I was already signed up for the Princess Half Marathon at Walt Disney World. It's like 1 giant Disney-themed party...count me in!

And the Princess Half started to look even more fun after seeing some Pinterest pins (like this, and this, and this) and several pictures posted by Kelly of According to Kelly (like this, and this, and this). Kelly makes rockin' a costume (and wig!) look easy!

During the Princess Half Marathon weekend, I'm signed up for 2 events:

• the Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse Royal Family 5K 
• the Princess Half Marathon

So, of course, it'd be cool to have some kind of costume for both events...  (I should mention now that when it comes to run costumes, I'm more of a color-matching type of gal than I am a getting-it-exactly-right-and-over-the-top type of gal.)

Tank with Cheshire Cat iron on

For the 5K, I became pretty fixated on dressing up as the Cheshire Cat.  I think mostly because I like Alice in Wonderland but also because I knew I could find a pink tank and some striped socks and because I also thought some purple or pink tights might be fairly easy to track down.

Well, Princess Half Marathon weekend is still over a month away, and my Cheshire Cat costume is almost done done almost done.

But...at this point, I'm starting to second guess the whole thing. (Like, should I even wear a costume at all?  Cause the tutu is going to take up considerable space in my luggage...)  So I thought it might be best if I share it with all of you. (Maybe that will keep me from chickening out?)

So here's what I've got:  tank top with Cheshire Cat iron on transfer + capri pants + tutu + funky socks.

These hot pink capris
will just not do

I initially thought the tutu might look best with some hot pink capri pants. But when I tried everything on, the hot pink capri pants made it look like a pink flamingo threw up all over. So I ended up swapping out the pink capris  for some purple capris instead.

The blue tutu I had in the San Jose Rock 'n' Roll half marathon (shown here) is just a regular 'ol tutu.  It was fine...but for the Cheshire Cat, I wanted to try something a little different.  So I shopped around and found an Etsy seller (Brittany from Enterherworld) making tutus in "bustle" style.

The tutu that the Etsy seller made for me has 4 distinct colors: purple, hot pink, light pink, and black. It took her a few weeks to make it, but when it arrived, I was blown away by how amazing it looks.  Suffice to say, I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Here's another pic (this time with the purple capris) and a pic showing the back of the tutu with the "bustle" (it sure looks close enough to a cool Cheshire Cat tail to me!).

I'm not sure what else I could add to this ensemb to take it "over the top" (or even that I want to spend any more money buying stuff to take it over the top!).

I know a couple of the items in my "costume" are special to the Cheshire Cat (like the socks and the tank and maybe the tutu), but actually most of the items can be reused for other outfits or just regular running. (I'm even quite sure I could reuse the tutu, and if nothing else, I could wear the tank and tutu again at another Disney-themed race.) To be perfectly honest, I'm actually a huge fan of lululemon gear (I buy almost exclusively from there). Their stuff always fits me right and has tons of pockets (for storing a house key or other stuff needed on a run). So the only thing I don't like about all of the pieces for my Cheshire Cat outfit is that both pairs of Nike capri pants have little to no pockets in them. (The hot pink capris has a tiny tiny, useless pocket on the back, and the purple capris have no pockets at all...boo.  I don't know about others, but when I'm running a half marathon, I need at least 1 decent pocket so that I can put my Honey Stinger gels somewhere. Buuuttt...whatevs.)

The only other item in my "costume" that's not shown in the pictures above is a hot pink Nike dri-fit hat that I'll wear to keep my hair in check.  (I actually thought about rockin' a hot pink wig -- Kelly style -- but I'm just not sure I could pull it off.)

So....what do you think --  did I hit the nail on the head with the Cheshire Cat outfit or did I miss the mark?