Anyway, I'm back, refreshed, and ready to blog!
Today I wanted to talk about the 5k I did last Saturday. I participated in Run For Your Lives, a zombie themed obstacle 5k and it had to have been one of the most exhilarating and difficult things I have ever done.
The basic premise of the 5k is simple. Run away from the zombies! When you register they give you a belt with three red flags on it. This belt represents your life and if the zombies snag all 3 flags then you are infected! I love the combination of flag football and an obstacle course, it adds a lot of tension and excitement to a basic 5k.
We ran the 10:30am heat so we had to get up at 6:30 which was no fun. The closest race location was still 1 hour 45 minutes away (we live in Ohio but actually went to the Indiana race) and they recommended we get there 2 hours early. Well, we showed up at 8:30 and got through registration in about 15 minutes, so we had some time to kill lol. However the registration queue did get longer as the day went on, but I do think the 2 hours early recommendation is a bit excessive, at least for the earlier race times.
At the start of the race we ran straight into an open field full of zombies. It was mass chaos! I lost 2 of my flags in that first batch of zombies! After that we were funneled into a much more narrow path through a wooded area. There were less zombies here, but the close quarters made it very hard to dodge them. Most of the zombies were shamblers, but a couple of them would full on sprint after people.
After a while we started running into obstacles along with zombies. There was a series of walls we had to climb over or under, a set of monkey bars over a giant mud pit (yeah I fell in the mud ugh), a dark house with dangling electrified wires, a wooden tunnel set up in in a creek we had to crawl through (this sucked because there were a ton of rocks), balance beams over mud pits, plus steep hills, creeks, rocky terrain, and oh yeah, zombies!
I made it really far with my one flag. I "played opossum" where I would put my flag behind me when there were zombies and jog up to them and act sad, like I had already lost my flags, then sprint past them. It worked well until I got stuck in a crowd and a zombie grabbed my flag. Erik made it a lot further but eventually got all of his flags snagged as well.
But, right before the last obstacle there was an employee of the race handing out "health kits" so I got a bonus flag for the final gauntlet. The final obstacle was a huge slide that ended in a pool of water colored like blood, a horde of zombies, and a belly crawl under an electrified fence (which felt like getting punched if you touched it, ouch!). It was scary and awesome. I made it to the slide with my flag but in between the pool and the finish line was a crowd of sprinting zombies. I waited for a runner ahead of me to take off and distract a few zombies and I just went for it. I dodged, dipped, dived, ducked, and dodged and made it to the finish line! I had avoided the zombies with my flag intact! (Erik on the other hand, slipped in the wet grass and got eaten. It was very sad).
I got a medal! My first race medal in fact.
 |
| Very proud! |
After the race there's an "apocalypse" party, but Erik and I were so knackered we just rinsed off and left. I thought the people who organized the Indiana race were very efficient and professional. We didn't have any issues with parking, registration, or security. The course was also well designed with enough space in between obstacles so there was very little bottle necking. Overall a very smooth operation, I was impressed!
I would highly recommend this 5k it's a ton of fun. However, I would really recommend strength training and practicing sprinting before hand. This isn't a distance race, it's a run like hell then walk kind of race. Some tips for surviving the zombie apocalypse are:
- Travel in packs. The zombies get more confused and there's a greater chance they will get distracted by other people, not you.
- Wear shoes that are good for rough terrain but aren't too heavy. They will get water logged!
- Pace yourself. Don't run if you don't have to and take advantage of the zombie free zones to catch your breath.
- Do some strength and agility training in the couple of months before the event. The more quick and nimble you are, the better.
- Don't be a dick and try and hide your flags under your clothes or in a pocket. That's cheating and takes the fun out of the race!
- If you decide to be a zombie, don't break character! There were a few zombies that gave me sympathy high-fives when I was flag-less which didn't bother me, but there were a few others that were just heckling runners and being general douche bags. Not fun.
