The Apocalypse (Picture overload)

Jason and I died in The Apocalypse.  A recent fundraising event required participants to maneuver a 5K obstacle course, while dodging hordes of zombies. The fundraiser was for That Others May Live Charity.
You start off the run with 3 flags on a belt.  If you make it to the end with a flag then you have survived.  They do offer health packs along the course that help you stay "human".  There were 720 runners.  We ran in the single runners event (they had us running in groups of 50).  There were around 250 single runners.  We were in the second wave of runners so we never saw any health packs.

Here are some pictures that I grabbed off of facebook photo albums.  We didn't run with our camera.  It was hard enough keeping track of runners and zombies that taking pictures would have only ended my "life" that much quicker.



The Entree and Appetizer signs are at the beginning of the race.  I thought they were funny.  The other signs are along the course.  They did a fantastic job, it was a lot of fun.  I think this was the best supported run (besides the marathon).



If you look close you will see the back of me.  I am wearing red and black shorts with a tan 2J Honey Farms (My Dad's honey company) shirt on.



Here are some of the zombies.  Zombie positions filled up before they closed the list for runners.  During the race I thought the zombies had the safer job.  Neither job is safe from injury.  One zombie was knocked out cold and ended up with a concussion.



More pics from the course.  The mud was the finale.  Too bad they put it at the end because most people didn't have flags at that point, so why dive in.  There was a crowd at the end that was egging people to dive, slide, flip, wipe out...  There were a few takers.





I already had a picture of this zombie.   I wanted to show the blue tarp to the right.  It is a pool of water that you get to run through.  At this point, you have all your flags and getting in the tank is the equivalent to "safe" in tag.  Jason and another guy cannon balled at the same time.  I was out to survive and not get hurt in the process, so I stepped in quickly.  Then you had the rest the 4.5K run to run in wet shoes.

I made Jason run the course with me and it was his job to help keep me safe.  He was successful for the firs three or four zombie encounters.  Then he decided that he was expending too much energy trying to lead them his way and he started to leave me.  I do not know how to juke.

Jason made it to the last area with all 3 flags.  In the last area the zombies had the upper ground and it was a large zombie horde.  Survival was very difficult.

Jason cresting the hill with his last flag.  I am some where back there (maybe my bare arm to the right?).      He just runs faster than I do through the zombies.

These pictures show Jason with his last flag assessing the situation with the other runners.  That is what you end up doing.  You run until you see a zombie horde and then you kind of pause and decide how to proceed.  Waiting for the pack to catch up or diving in.  Jason likes to dive.

A friend happened to be in this area when Jason came through and took pictures of Jason losing his last flag.  In the third picture you see the guy in overalls grabbing it.  Since there were very few people with flags at this point, they really started to single out the survivors.  The guy with 3, don't know how he made it that far.  

Near the end the zombies started to tackle survivors to get their flags.  I was glad mine were gone.  I did see a runner get tackled only to have the zombies discover his flag was tied on.  There are stories of rude runners hurting zombies and vice versa.  Too bad that people have to play like that, kind of kills the fun.

I had lots of fun and would do it again.  Now I know how to train.  1.  Practice running the distance.  2.  During a 5K run sprint for a 100 yards about 10-12 times.  3.  Play "Sharks and Minnows" to practice juking.