2 of 8: Dawn of the Dead Dash (Training for the Spartan Race)

 

THREE runs in November and I'm laughing at myself because seriously, what am I thinking? Can't I just train without signing up for additional races?

Well, I could do that but here is my reasoning of signing up for races in between now to the Spartan Race. It keeps me consistent on staying with my training for the Spartan. See, I'm trying to maintain and right now this is my plan of action. A nutty plan of action but I have to do what I believe I need to do that will help me be prepared.

Anyhow! This is my 2nd race of November and it's a fun run, of course. I signed up in August or September when someone posted this race as an upcoming event. I figured it would be fun considering it was at night. 

However, we would not know where it was going to be held until the week of the event. We were emailed that race packet (bib and shirt) was to be picked up at Lulu's in Waikiki (Our headquarters for the race) the day before and on the day of the event. I chose to go the day before, so I can redesign my shirt.

We were given instructions that our starting point was Kapiolani Park bandstand along with signing a waiver that we would not hold them liable if we got injured on course because no roads were closed because it was an urban event. This made me think what if those zombies looked hideous and scarey like those characters from Haunted Plantation? Can you imagine how scared all of us would be? I know I would be! Dan decided to stay in the car and just watch everyone run around like crazy as I got out of the car when it was 7:00pm (meeting/briefing began at 7:15pm). As I got closer to the bandstand, I noticed that there wasn't that much people at first AND the participants that was roaming around was around my kids age. I honestly thought that I would be the only old lady running around with a bunch of kids.

 

 

But, as 7:15pm approached, I was happy to see that were people who were older than me showing up in costumes or running gear. I was relieved!

 

When 7:15pm came around, all the participants stood around looking at eachother wondering who was going to distribute the glow collars as well as give us instructions. The lady at Lulu's showed up with an assistant who started distributing the collars. Right after we all placed the collar around our neck, she laid out the rules:

 

1) We will be given a code to enter onto their website that will give us our first checkpoint. *At each checkpoint, there will be a code that will give us the location of the next checkpoints (there were three in all with headquarters as the last place to show up).

2) No cheating-if we die, we die. And when we die, we enter the code number of being dead. Once dead, we turn into zombies and will have to chase other runners to get their glow collars. And we could not tag from the front. We had to tag from the back.

3) No hitting or slapping the zombies

4) Have fun-after all, it was only a 5k and it wasn't for time.

 

After the rules, she gave us our code. Talk about a mad scramble because as soon as we entered the code, the google map showed up and it pointed to our first checkpoint. Majority of us ran across the road to get as far away from the zombies.

 

Of course, you see the picture below me. First, it shows that we are cleared to start running. After the first checkpoint and catching our breath, we could also post on Twitter or Facebook what we were up to in our run.

 

I was killed by the little girl in this picture because I was trying to run away from her zombie mom! Boo! But, I entered in my dead code and decided to run the rest of the course, which was hilarious because the third checkpoint was difficult since the zombies were surrounding the area that had the code for all the runners that weren't infected yet.

 

After running to the third checkpoint, I ran back to Lulu's Waikiki, where I was able to take pictures with the little girl zombies.



If you never did do a zombie fun run, try it. It's hilarious because it's like playing tag at night and it's a FUN RUN. However, I would recommend that you run with a group of friends or family because it makes it more hilarious and memorable especially when a particular checkpoint is surrounded by zombies and you'll eye eachother up wondering who will be the one that will have to sacrifice themselves for the rest of you to make it through the checkpoint.