RELENTLESS FORWARD COMMOTION

Adventure may hurt you, but monotony will kill you.

Run for your LIVES!!!

In my quest to do anything and everything and anything that does NOT resemble normal road racing this year, I stumbled across this ridiculousness:


Yes, not only do you have to face the traditional obstacles, mud, and chaos of a typical mud run…but now you have to run from zombies trying to eat your brains (or steal your flags, same thing).  I’m not even joking. This is a very real event.

It goes like this:  racers, wearing a flag football-like belt with three flags, must make strategic choices to find the quickest route to the finish line with at least one flag to complete the race as a “survivor”. But what makes this even MORE of a challenge? (besides the obvious…blood thirsty zombies…) The website FAQ’s state (and scare me with) the following:
talk about some inpromteau speed work…

“There will be a start line, and a finish line, but what happens in between is up to you. There are multiple routes to reach the finish. Choose wisely, or your 5k might turn into a 10k.  

(uh oh…anyone else remember that time I got LOST on the trail marathon?)
 

Use speed, strategy and your intact brains to make it to the FINISH LINE “alive” with at least ONE FLAG INTACT (or a health bonus pack). If you finish with zero health flags, this means the zombies have successfully transformed you into the “undead”; your time will be recorded, but you will not be eligible for awards.”

Got that? It doesn’t matter how fast you are, you simply can not win this race unless you can avoid the zombies. And it appears, they are EVERYWHERE.





“Be. Aggressive. B-E Aggressive! (and don’t get eaten!)”
Survivors and newly-created “zombies” – those who finish without flags – will be able to celebrate following the event at the Apocalypse Party, which willfeature live, local entertainment, music, vendors, food, beverages, and of course, zombies.

What’s not to love about that?  (says the girl who can’t even bring herself to go to Halloween haunted houses/forests/whatever because I’m such a pansy).

Yes, May 5th, my brave little non-runner-but-totally-a-bad-a$$-zombie-destroyer sister and I will be running the “Run For Your Lives” event in Boston.   (and Bostonians…they opened SUNDAY waves as well! Check it out before it sells out!)  I’m excited. And somewhat terrified. And utterly concerned for little sister, as she is either going to have to a) hear me scream like a pansy the entire 3.1 miles, or b) get left in the DUST as I sprint to safety, out of fear of fake-zombies.

I can’t wait 🙂

The inaugural race launched in Darlington, Md., last October with more than 10,000 participants and spectators.  So for 2012 Run For Your Lives expanded apocalyptic race locations and dates to  include:

uhh…are those…INTESTINES???

Indianapolis – June 23, 2012

Seattle/Portland – Aug. 4, 2012
Pittsburgh – Sept. 1, 2012
San Diego/Los Angeles – Oct. 20, 2012
Baltimore – Oct. 27, 2012
Austin – Dec.15, 2012

So how many of you crazy kids are going to join me?  Check out www.runforyourlives.com to find the nearest race near you or to register today!

Have any of you run from zombies? Already a survivor of the zombie apocalypse? Brains intact?
I’d love to hear your race experience!

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Comments

  7. Saw this one online via a friend that knows I’m big into running. There isn’t one very close to us, but if it comes here, I’ll definitely be in. The flags bit kind of makes me wonder if the other runners will attempt to sabotage you by pulling them off as well. It’d be pretty weak to do that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens.

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  8. What a coincidence. I just heard about this today at the Y and came straight home googled it. I found one 4 hours away near my anniversary and called my husband and convinced him we should do it! I’m so glad you blogged about it today to increase how excited I am about this race!

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  10. This is so flipping amazingly awesome!! I am jealous but at the same time I am waaaay to scares to do something like this. I absolutely CANNOT go to haunted houses!

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  11. Amazing! That looks to be so much fun and surely a breathtaking event for the runners like you heather. It seems like plants VS. zombies, when you have to protect your house not to be eaten by zombies. LOL, here you have to protect your flag inorder to be a survivor. You have to run for your Lives! Good luck girl!

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  14. Holy Crap! I have no words!! I have never heard of this before. I am terrified of these type of things…BUT this has got to be one of the craziest races I’ve seen. However, I do love Zombieland, so maybe I might have to check this out. Will def be posting about this soon. Ha ha!!!

    How do you get to be a zombie??

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  16. This is a trip! Looks like a great race, and… if there are any believers out there, I had this same idea for a run and I had blogged about it two weeks ago. Same deal with zombies and the flags, but not the mud, and in my version, once your flag is taken, you yourself are a zombie and try to steal others flags. Here is the link: http://markmatthewsauthor.blogspot.com/2012/03/walking-dead-season-two-and-running.html
    Obviously I’m not saying that they stole my idea, only saying that I’m one cool as hell kinda dude.

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  17. i know lots of people who did this one in MD and had a blast! And its a race that actually pays to be middle of the pack aka the faster you are the less runners are around you the the zombie to runner ratio is higher. when you are middle of the pack there are more people around you aka the zombies are dispersed to more runners ; )

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