Danger! Zombies! Run! 5K (2013)

Kurt and I have run this race for the past two years. It’s always so much fun. This year, however, it didn’t look like we’d be running. After I got back from the Zooma Half Marathon, I did something to my back.

The Thursday before the race, it had been almost two weeks since I’d run. I tried to run on the treadmill at the gym, but stopped after only a quarter of a mile. My back pain had pretty much gone away, until I tried to run. Running hurt, so I rode the stationary bike instead. Again.

That night, Kurt asked if I thought I’d be able to do the Zombies 5K. I told him I really didn’t think so, since I hadn’t even been able to run 1/4 mile that morning. He seemed pretty disappointed. I told him he could run, but he said that wouldn’t be any fun.

I rested on Friday, and tried to run again on Saturday. It hurt, but not nearly bad as it had a few weeks ago, or even just two days ago. I ran 3 miles. As soon as I got home, I told Kurt I’d run with him if he still wanted to do it. He definitely did!

We went to Goodwill to look for costumes. Right away, I found a plaid skirt and decided I’d be a school girl zombie. I went in search of a white button down shirt.

Kurt found a Grateful Dead shirt and decided to be a hippie.

We stopped at Target and picked up some knee socks and hair ribbons for me. And finished our shopping at the Halloween Store, where Kurt got a wig and some sunglasses.

We washed our costumes, and then stained them with tea and ripped them up.

Sunday morning, we got to the race pretty early because we still needed to register. I was randomly given bib #420, which really should have gone to my hippie husband.

We had some time to kill while we were waiting for the race to start, so we took some goofy pictures.

And then met up with all our fellow zombies at the starting line.

The humans start first. They all have red ribbons taped to their backs. Ninety seconds later, the zombies are let loose, to try to catch and kill the humans (by collecting their ribbons). The race shirts this year said “zombies love fast food”, which I thought was pretty clever.

The race course is hilly, which I think is perfect for a Halloween themed race (more of a trick than a treat).

I don’t really know why, but I always think it’s a lot of fun to run through town wearing a costume.

Everybody loved the hippie zombie.

The temperature was barely above freezing, so a nice hot cup of coffee from Mudhouse was exactly what this school girl zombie needed after the race.

The awards ceremony was pretty disorganized, and rushed. Not too many people stayed for it, anyway.

Awards were given out to the first over-all zombie and human finishers, the zombies with the most kills, and best costume male and female adult and children.

They had a few extra awards, so they made up or extended some of the categories until they were out of prizes. The prizes were things like a bloody rubber foot, a ghoul on a stick and headless skeletons.

These two won the best costume awards.

A look back:

2012

2011

We’re thinking next year we might try to coordinate our costumes.

Danger! Zombies! Run! 5k (October 28, 2012)

We had so much fun running this race last year, that there was never any question about us doing it again this year. My only dilemma was that I thought I had a pretty good costume last year, and didn’t know how I could possibly come up with a better one for this year’s race. Kurt had already decided he was going to be a Domino’s delivery driver zombie.

The weekend before the race, Kurt and I were trying to come up with a costume idea for me. We were saying that a golfer or tennis player zombie could be pretty cool. We decided to stop at Goodwill to see if we could find anything that would work. Less than twenty minutes and $8 later, we were driving home with my complete costume.

Race morning, there are professional face painters available to do your zombie makeup if you’re willing to pay the extra fee.

We just do our own.

We could tell right away that Kurt’s costume was a big hit. EVERYBODY was pointing to and talking about the Domino’s guy.

One lady really liked my costume, though. She said her boyfriend is a big tennis player, and she thought my costume was great.

Several people asked to take our picture. We even posed with some humans.

It’s always fun checking out all the different costumes.

The race field is split up into “humans” and “zombies”. The humans are given a head start. Last year it was 90 seconds, this year it was cut to a more manageable (for the zombies!) 60 seconds. The humans all have red ribbons tied to their backs. The zombies try to catch up to and “kill” as many humans as they can by collecting the red ribbons from the human’s backs.

Last year a preacher gave a mock sermon at the start of the race, but this year there was just a mass count-down after the humans were released.

We knew from last year that if we didn’t take off sprinting, we wouldn’t catch any humans that were still alive. Kurt, however, was running stiff-legged like a zombie. I had to stop and wait for him to catch up. I guess he wasn’t very interested in making any kills.

We caught plenty of humans, but none of them still had ribbons.

We weren’t racing, but we were still working pretty hard. I was definitely sweaty and tired at the end.

I left my Garmin at home both years. The big watch just doesn’t go with a costume, and this is just a fun race, so I’m not really concerned with my time. The race is not 5k, though. The second year they did the race, they moved the finish line to the opposite end of the downtown mall (adding almost a half mile). They still call it a 5k. For a Halloween race, I think that’s just fine (even kind of cool!), but I do wish they’d acknowledge somewhere that it’s not 5k.

Even zombies need coffee.

Kurt won the best costume award!

I’ve already started thinking about my costume for next year.