I belittle this event and in most of the run I joined I thought that this is the fastest and easiest hurdle. I miscalculated the time that I would finish the 5km race in 30 minutes and I even SMS my sister that I would meet her in the city between 5-5:30pm to see a friend. Alas, this wasn’t that easy, lesson learned: figure out the situation first.
The sun is high when Ferdie, Donna and I got to the venue, it hasn't started yet but we are soaking in our sweat from registration to service bus queue going to the site. It’s good that we run late on our call time and the heat of the sun at 3:30 pm, that was our flag-off time, was still warm and will not relatively burn our skin. Again, another misconception.
At the start of the race, there was a mix feeling of scruple and excitement because to us, this is our first. On the first 500 meters, as I got near to the reality, there was already a group of Zombies waiting for us to chase and get the flags tied on our waist. We must keep at least one flag until we cross the finish line, as a token, we will get the survivor shirt. In our group there was one runner who arrayed in a spider man costume, I had a dilemma whether I will run with Spidy or not because most of the Zombies that we came across aimed for him. It was a deciding point for me as I thought that he’s a superhero, another misconception. I woke up my mind that this is for real, I have to save myself and my two dangling flags. We are not prepared to the obstacles, even a training before this event was not in our plan. It’s good that not anyone of us had an injury, just a muscle pain that has been stretched beyond what our body expected to happen. It was a sigh of relief when I finally slide down the water which I thought that it was the last stumbling block to the finish line, whew, I need to crawl in the sand and under the net on the way to the quarantine area. But I cheated and opted not to do that, instead, I cross over through a small gap without tormenting myself creeping. Luckily there’s no Zombies in that area, because the gist there is that they will not harm or get your flags if you passed through the last tripping. I salute Ferdie and Donna for groveling in the sand without hesitation.
It was fun and full of suspense and surprises, but this will be my first and last Zombie run that I will join. I was gasping for air after each encounter with the Zombies, aside from running, I was laughing and screaming during the event. There was a big difference between the real competition and this event. I can pace it and stop anytime I want when I'm competing.
