Run For Your Lives - What Should I Do NOW?

jessicae1aine

I'm looking at hopefully joining the November 17th Run For Your Lives in Florida - quite a ways away, yes, but I've just recently started being less lazy and actually paying attention to what I'm shoving in my mouth, so now is clearly the best time to start preparing.

Aside from C25K, which I have no desire in doing whatsoever, what would you recommend doing to get into shape and best be able to handle whatever obstacles this is going to throw at me along with the, well, running my *kitten* off from (hopefully scary) zombies?

jessicaeclark

I'm signed up for the October one, and I intend on running for now, and than starting core exercises, past that kind of preparing-I'm not really sure-
Either way, it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun!

Make sure to also check out Hero Rush (Herorush.com) It's the firefighter-themed 5k obstacle race event!

vegamy

Aside from C25K, which I have no desire in doing whatsoever, what would you recommend doing to get into shape and best be able to handle whatever obstacles this is going to throw at me along with the, well, running my *kitten* off from (hopefully scary) zombies?

The Zombie 5K was great!! It really wasn't too much physical exertion (the obstacles weren't too challenging, and the course was so muddy that few people actually ran the majority of it). Apparently only 1 in 20 survive - no one in my group did!

To prep, I'd say just gradually increase your running and endurance - overall, my pace was almost 3x slower than my normal 5K pace! You don't necessarily have to be able to run a whole 5K, because you stop so much for the obstacles that it's really best to sprint when the zombies are around, but just get conditioned for endurance and balance, maybe some strength training, and you'll be set. It's definitely more mental than anything else.

We started out by going up a huge, muddy hill and were greeted by zombies at the top! We went through a bunch of fields, a building (dark, foggy, and riddled with electrical wires), a maze, a trench full of mud (up to my knees), a small muddy river full of logs, and a couple low crawls, all the while being chased by zombies! I found it really hard to run, my shoes kept getting sucked off in the mud!! The last two obstacles were basically a climb and dunk into a muddy tank and a huge slip-and-slide (which was actually really fast and scary). Oh! And a low crawl under an electric fence! I lost my flags kind of early on, it was really hard to avoid the swarms of zombies with all of the mud. And after a while, no one around you has flags and they all target you to grab them!!

I guess they say that it's best to be in one of the very first waves so that the course isn't as muddy.

I was so cold, wet, and muddy at the end! I've never been so dirty in my life! There's no showers to speak of, either. Luckily I brought baby wipes, so I got the majority of the thick mud off of me.