Run For Your Lives

Have you ever had to evade Zombies?
That is what I spent the better part of my day doing today!
I took part in a Zombie Mud Run with some friends today! It was called Run For Your Lives. OMG what a fun day! We signed up for the  noon wave, and the website suggested you get there 2 hours early, so I left at 9:00. If you have never done a mud run, there are some things you should know, should you intend to do one in the future:

1. never wear anything you love
2. wear tight fitting clothes, with as little cotton as possible
3. wear old shoes. you may never wear them again!
4. be prepared to get muddy and wet. everywhere. I mean it. every.where.

You also need to pack some stuff:

1. several towels, again, not your favorites. I usually bring old beach towels
2. baby wipes
3. a jug or 3 of water
4. a change of clothes, that you will get muddy anyway, so again, not your favorites
5. shoes and socks, or even better, flip flops
6. ID
7. bug spray and/or sunscreen
8. cash
9. a drawstring bag, and once again, not a favorite

I arrived at the parking area at around 10:00. Always check to see if they are charging to park. They almost always do, and it is usually $10. The parking attendants were amazing. Super friendly and super quick. I parked, grabbed my drawstring bag and headed for the bus line. In my bag I only brought cash, my flip flops, my ID, the waiver, and the bug spray. I always change when I get back to my car afterwards.

The bus line was also very speedy and I was on my way to the race site. They had bib pickup in abc order, and my line was very short. They took my waiver, checked my ID for the free beer, and gave me my bib and flag belt. I strapped on the belt, pinned on my bib, and waited for my friends to arrive. Luckily, there was plenty to keep me entertained, because it was only 10:45 at this point!

bib and flag belt

Zombies....off duty lol

The music was amazing and the DJ definitely knew how to keep a crowd going. Lots of dance contests, musical chairs, footballs and frisbies. He was a mad man! He also set you off on your way for the race.

DJ

we were Dessert, lol. More on this soon!

I finally found my friend Paul, who brought his friend Gooch to be our Sherpa. Paul's friend Jen also came with her family. Paul told us about the corrals. Appetizers are the fast people, Entrees are the people who want to do well, but not super competitive, and Desserts are the ones there to have a good time. They let you out of your corrals in that order. We sat in that overheated oven for a while, waiting for our turn.

just before we went to our corral

my fave zombie at the makeup tent. He tried to git me later, I was not thrilled!

We were off!
We ran around a few trails, and approached a Christmas Tree field. They were so pretty. And then there was screaming! ZOMBIES!!! We managed to evade them, but it was after several minutes of full on sprinting, and Paul lost a flag I think, from a kid who was hiding in the trees.
We walked a bit and saw some lovely Zombie Mimes. They lunged but didn't try to grab. I think it was a trick. We were lulled into complacency. Around that corner was a crap ton of Zombies. We saw a guy go down, and everyone was checking on him so we ran like crazy, but not before I lost 2 of my flags. There was an evil  Santa, and 2 of his minions got me. Evil little elves. I moved my final flag to the back, because none of the Zombies really looked at us after we passed.
There were a bunch of groups of Zombies, and we managed to evade many of them. Jen kept her flags the longest. One group noticed she still had all 3, and they started screaming to each other, "white shirt white shirt she has 3." Some cowboy ran after her (Paul said it was Terminator-like) and he got her first flag. At that point we came to the first true obstacle. Three sets of planks across the road that we had to scoot under. They were pretty high so it was no big deal. On the other side were many many many many Zombies in small groups. You barely relaxes before the next group came. Most of them left me alone because I only had one flag. Paul had one flag at this point I think, but Jen still had two.
There were lots of costumed Zombies: Alice, brides, Doctors, cops. There was a duo dressed as Rocky and the Russian, so I hummed the theme song as we ran by, which amused them, lol.
Then  we came upon the smoke house. It had 3 windows to climb through and shock wires hung from the ceiling. If you took your time, and stayed near the wall, you could get through with no problem.
The Zombies were waiting though. We ran through them and soon came to a water station.
I was commenting on the guy with pretty blue wings. He was the devil. He infected me. Paul got infected as well, and I think Jen lost her second flag in that group.
Paul and I decided to try and protect her at this point. There were lots of groups of Zombies but we got through. We came the area Santa was, and the Zombies herded Jen into a puddle and got her. She wiped out and got all muddy lol.
Next came the cargo net, This was the most time consuming. It was not wide, and was kinda droopy, so everyone was using teamwork to pull it taut so others could get over. We took our turns holding it, and then went over. It was pretty easy.
Next was the balance beams. There were 3 so we held hands and went right over. Not even a stumble! Under this mush I have abs of steel lol. Lots of people fell in though!
Some more Zombies and then we approached the final obstacles! There was a huge slide that led to a pool of water. we were so excited for this one, but some bonehead jumped on it around 12:15 and broke it, so they closed it down! UGH!
They had A-Frames you had to crawl through, and the mud was really packed down, so that wasn't fun lol. When you came out, there was a super thick mud pit you had to run through, filled with teenie Zombies, all barefoot. They said to go fast so our shoes didn't get stuck, so I started doing this weird ballet move through the mud. They all thought that was great, so they were dancing along with me. One of them hugged me and got me even muddier, and that is when I lost the first shoe. When I went to get it (and what a noise it made, kind of a Thwuck noise) I lost the other one. I finished the run in my socks, and approached the fence we had to crawl under. It was super tight, and it was electric shocked. Yay. I crawled through, and my but got shocked twice! It was like that shock you get when you go down the slide and the static electricity gets you!
We made it! We collected our Infected Medals and our tech shirts and posed for some pics.

lol can you tell I screen shot that from Paul's Facebook page? Gooch takes good pics, lol.

After I donated my shoes, we headed to the beer tent for the free beer. I gave mine to Gooch, since I don't drink beer.

Jen's son took this for me, what a sweetie!

I saw some peeps with big fat steak fries, so we headed to the showers to hose off so that we could eat. There was a  cool photo op on the way, so of course we had to stop!

What fun! The fries were so tasty, but for fries and severely watered down lemonade, I paid $10. Yikes! I headed to the car to wash off.
I used the jug of water and one of the towels to get most of the mud off, and then used the second towel to sit on while I changed in the back seat. Thank goodness for tinted windows, lol. The parking lot was pretty empty, so there was no worry there! I brought the wipes in case there was mud on my face and in my ears, but I was pretty clean from the neck up. No worries there!

muddy bib!

love my Infected medal!

runner swag! i got the Buffalo Ranch for the hubs and Paul gave me his Berry Yogurt.

I am sure I forgot so much, but it was a great day. I had a lot of fun, it was very well run, I really have no complaints!

Have you done any mud runs/obstacle races?