1) Figure out where the annihilation is happening before the big day: Fellow zombie hunter Alli and I assumed the race would be in Seattle because all events in Washington happen in Seattle. Wrong. After we hit Seattle, we drove for two more hours and hooked a left for another 40km to McCleary, and assumed we had missed the race. We made it but with a lot of unnecessary grief. Bad idea because we all know zombies can smell fear.
2)Make friends with your fellow racers, you will need them: As you attempt to make your way to the Safe Zone with all 3 flags (making it in with one flag means you survived, no flags means infected), you are going to encounter a lot of zombies, sometimes just one, sometimes an entire horde. Your best chance at making it past unscathed/with all of your flags lies in running past them in a large pack. Some zombies will make half-hearted attempts for your flags, some will actually chase you and make that horrible zombie noise in your ear.
3)The path to freedom is rife with hills, mud, and obstacles: Yes, the Zombie Apocalypse has a lot of hills-work on those leg muscles, you're gonna need them. And every other muscle-the obstacles you will encounter along the way are tough! You will need your fellow racers to get through/over some of them because the mud makes them so slippery-my clothes and shoes picked up about 10lbs worth of mud over the 5km. You will crawl through more mud than you've ever seen in your life, swim through a blood pit, under live wires and an electric fence or two.
4)Bring a waterproof, disposable camera: The photo ops of the End of Days are pretty spectacular but would destroy event the toughest iPhone/electronic device. I have barely any pics and am pretty bummed about it. The link above has some good ones.
Feel more prepared now? Good. Sadly, Alli and I were infected (the current tally stands at 44,344 survivors and 97,525 infected). The Run For Your Lives crew put on a very good, well organized event/apocalypse practice however it was tough to find food afterwards (running scared works up quite the appetite!). For anyone looking to give this a try next year, I wholeheartedly recommend doing the race twice-once as a runner AND once as a zombie (professional zombie make up included), not sure which one looked like more fun! Fingers crossed it comes to Vancouver next year too.
Would you rather chase or be chased?
The zombies in the photo were the nicest girls :)
ReplyDelete