Preparing to enter the Zombie Zone.
So, I wasn’t planning on running the Zombie Chase 5K in Provo, Utah last weekend, but my two older kids signed up and talked me into joining them. I was hesitant for several reasons: the race was only a 5K (I came home and ran again), the race was down in Provo so it was an hour drive each way, and I’m just not that into zombies. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure there are a lot of nice zombies out there, I just don’t know why anyone would want to pay money to be chased by them. But in the end, I looked forward to spending time with my kids more than anything.
The Starting Line.
Some dads take their kids fishing, or camping, or to sporting events. I take mine to zombie races.
Don’t get infected!
Luckily, the weather turned out beautiful after it had been stormy the three days before the race. The course was dry for the most part, and the air was crisp, but not too cold, and by the end I was wishing I had ditched my sweatshirt.
Running through the “meat” market tent.
The start times were staggered every 10 to 20 minutes from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, which was a good thing because there were lines to get through some of the obstacles on the course. This also made it impossible to time the race, so the concern wasn’t really how fast you completed the race, but just getting through the obstacles and having fun.
Guess who’s waiting at the bottom of the gravel pile?
One of the funniest moments happened about 1-mile into the race. There was a large pile of gravel that we had to run up and over. Zombies were popping up out of the rocks and roaming around the bottom.
Here they come! Run, you fool, run!
Unfortunately, my daughter got a rock stuck in her shoe, and she ran a few feet away before stopping to get the gravel out. She didn’t realize that she was a sitting duck, and like a zombie-magnet, they snuck up behind her and nearly caught her. There were lots of close calls like that throughout the race.
Don’t forget the “Double Tap.”
At one point, racers got to fire paintball guns at zombies in some sort of twisted shooting gallery. There were “sewer pipes” that we climbed through, and we ran through empty gravesites with barbed wire above and zombies roaming around. At another point, we had to cross a cargo net with zombies below grabbing at us. The last part saw us climb some bales of hay in sort of a mini-barn, and this was the biggest back-up during the race.
This gravesite is taken.
In the end, it was pretty fun, and the kids had a blast. We were lucky to survive unscathed and live to tell about it.
Survival Rule #1: “Cardio”
Fortunately, there was a “decontamination” tent at the end of the race, and in order to avoid any long-term psychological trauma or PTSD, we stopped at the In ‘N’ Out Burger on the way home for a thorough, post-race debriefing.
© Copyright 2012 Jeff, All rights Reserved. Written For: Jeffrey Olsen