River Zombie Run For Your Life 5K {Race Report}

On October 27^th the Albany River Aquarium held a benefit run.  However this run/race was a little different than any that I’ve ever done before.  The course was an out and back on the greenway beside the Flint River and about half mile of it was on trail.  But what made this run so much fun was the fact that they had filled the course with Zombies!  Yep, there were a bunch of Crazy Folks dressed up with full make-up trying to get the runners.   

The way it worked was you were giving two life flags (think flag football).  The object was to be the first (male & female) to cross the finish line with both life flags.  The run/race was untimed but everyone still got a medal just for finishing the run.  It was an untimed event.  They had also put out some obstacles on the course to slow you down.  The obstacles were tires to run threw and a wall that you had to run up and over. 

I started out about middle front of a pack of over 300 runners.  At first I was running slowly because I didn’t know what to expect.  The first couple of Zombies were no big deal because there were so many runners in groups that if they weren’t going for you, you could just run on by.   Then about a half way into the run I decided that my best bet to finishing the run ‘Alive’ was to run all out when I came up on a Zombie.  I thought I would have the advantage over the Zombie by running full speed for two reasons. 

One:  I hoped that they would see me running so HARD that they would be like forget that guy, too much effort to get him.  I’ll chase the next one. 

Two:  The Zombies were standing flat footed and waiting on the runners to come to them.  So, I figured if I could get up to an all out sprint that I would have the momentum over the Zombie and that they wouldn’t have a quick first step. 

 

Here I am trying to do my best spin move to avoid this zomibe.  From the look of this picute it was much closer than I thought.  {photo by @mrjonmiller on twitter}

Here I am checking to make sure that I still had my flags.  {photo by @mrjonmiller on twitter}

 

This plan of mine worked great.  I take off when I saw a Zombie and then I would take a walk break to get ready for the next group of Zombies.  However all this hard running was wearing me down.  I also started to notice that the Zombies seemed to be picking on me.  I didn’t know it at the time but I was running with a group of friends and I was the only one with life flags left. 

I was tired but feeling very confident around 2.5 mile mark.  It was about that time that some old lady started talking to me.  She was asking all kinds of questions and really trying to have a conversation with me.  Then out of nowhere one of the guys that was running with just reach over and grabbed of my flags.  At first I thought it was just another runner because he didn’t look like a Zombie but he was.  This guy had one little bit scratch on him.  I felt that it was very Bush League of that lady and that Zombie.  However I did finish the race alive because I still had one flag but my pride was hurt that I lost one. 

Bottom line it was a Great Event and a great way to spend the afternoon.