Race redux, zombie-style

Today was the big day, the race I've been waiting for since February. Run For Your Lives.

The race was to be a 5K obstacle course, like the mud runs that have become so popular, with a catch: Throughout the course, there are dozens of zombies. Runners are given a belt with three red flags, representing health, and during the race, the folks dressed as zombies stagger about, shouting and groaning and saying "Braaaaaaaains..." while trying to nab these flags. Keep them all and you're eligible for prizes in the placings at the end. Lose them all, and you're just like 90% of your cohorts. No harm, no foul.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I've never done a mud run, nor have I ever spectated, and I had only a vague idea of what would be involved. So when I got to the location, a motocross track in rural Minnesota, I was a little worried.

Okay, a lot worried.

As I entered, I saw to the right what could only be described as one of the world's largest Slip-N-Slides, ending in a pool of mudwater. Since my wave was going off in the afternoon and I had arrived early, I watched folks taking their turn on this huge slide. It looked fun, sure. But it was high, and what goes down must have first gone up.

To the left, I saw a number of obstacles and a field peppered with zombies. I saw monkey bars above a pit of water, an exposed hill to climb up, and a not-quite-so-enormous slide down a muddy hill. No plastic on this one. Just a guy at the top with a hose, keeping the hill slick. From the number of people completing this obstacle in clean clothes and full flags, I reasoned that this must have been one of the first obstacles.

Greeeeeeat.

Armed with this glimpse of the track, my running cohort and I checked in, and shortly before our wave, we herded into the starting box.

It was in this black box, surrounded by my fellow runners, that the dread washed over me, overwhelming. Probably too late to back out now.

And then, we were off. The gate was opened and we leapt forward as a mob, taking a hard right through a muddy underpass and straight into zombie territory.

The course opened with hills. Lots of hills. Big ones, with rocks and little dips that fell and climbed relentlessly. Within minutes, my breathing was ragged, my chest sore, and my throat screaming. My inner monologue very helpfully pointed out that if the whole course was like this, I wouldn't make it. In fact, if only half the course was like this, I wouldn't make it. It was brutal. My confidence was destroyed in the first quarter mile.

I took solace in the fact that everyone around me was feeling the same way.

And then the worst was over.

The course was still difficult. Very. The darkened hallway with the exposed wires was scary, especially when the hanging wires touched runners and gave a little kick. The monkey bars were two inches too high for me to reach, so I jumped into the chest-deep water and took the losers' way across. There were four-foot walls to scramble over, streams to ford, mazes to navigate, and obstacles to crawl under. There was a muddy wall with a few ropes to help runners scramble up and an up-and-over cargo net that was no joke.

I hated that net. I almost bit it on that net. I settled for accidentally kicking the guy climbing up the other side. (Sorry, guy.)

And! My pants kept falling down. This is important. Spandex gets heavy when it's waterlogged and full of sand. FYI.

The opportunities for running were few. I'm not yet in shape for dominating those hills, so I spent a lot of time walking. Given the way we tended to bottle-neck at the obstacles, running may not have helped my time, anyway. Whenever I found flat land, I managed to pick up a jog, which was satisfying. I may not be fit enough for the hills, but I'm fit enough to jog even after I've been put through the wringer.

Interval training gets things done.

Shortly before the cargo net, I lost my last flag. I'd kept all three of them for quite a while, and I started to get optimistic. No such luck. My ACL-less inability to dodge and pivot made me an easy target for the chaser zombies, who started showing up late in the course.

Not having flags didn't stop the zombies from approaching and crying for my brains, though. I gave one hopeful zombie a hug when she staggered toward me, arms outstretched.

Zombies need love, too.

Then, finally, was the big slide. The really big one. To get to it, we came down from above, carefully navigating a much-too-vertical hill face.

What a difference an hour makes. Those first hills were so brutal, so unforgiving, and here we were at the end, looking out over the course from at least twice as high. Things are not always what they seem.

I slid down that enormous hill, arms raised in victory as I plunged into the muddy water pit at the bottom, and Sweet Martha's Cookies, did it all go wrong in that instant. I was moving so fast that no amount of squeezing my eyes shut could keep the tiny particles of dirt from shoving their way into my eyes, where the dirt quickly deposited itself under my contacts. I stood in the pit, eyes closed, physically unable to open them, staggering to where I thought the edge was. My knees bumped the wall and I dragged myself out, crawling.

"Are you okay?" Staff members were yelling, presumably at me. I don't know for sure, 'cause I couldn't see. But I decided they were talking to me, and I yelled that I was fine, I just couldn't see because my eyeballs were broken, or something. It's a little fuzzy in my brain.

After a few moments, I forced myself to open my eyes and made my way to a staffer, who shared his water so I could wash one of my hands and prod around in my eye. It didn't help the sensation of thousands of piranha teeth wedged under my lenses, but at least I could wipe the mud off my eyelids and see my way to the final obstacle, which I really needed to see on account of the fact that it was an electric fence.

For all the pain I was in, this was one of my favorite obstacles. It was a belly crawl, through the mud, under several feet of electrified fence. That's what the sign said, anyway, and unlike so many college-aged men in the race, I didn't need to walk up to the fence and grab hold before I became a believer.

Oh yes. It's true. True and hilarious.

And then it was over. I crossed the line, collected my medal, and headed for the overpass where a dozen shower heads pelted me with freezing water. I was too preoccupied with my burning eyes to properly wash up, so I cleaned my hands, poked my eyes some more, and made a hasty dash for my car.

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when I realized I had left my eyedrops at home and had no way to fix my contacts. I angsted and cried about how it all hurt and I didn't know how we were going to get home until my kid pulled some out of his bag, forgotten there after his last trip.

I'll never lecture him about not cleaning that bag out again.

So here I am, safely at home. I have road rash on my arms from the crawl under the fence, dozens of bruises on my legs, sunburn on my neck, and two acutely painful hematomas on my rear from the first muddy slide. My eyes seem none the worse for wear.

Final results were posted an hour after the last wave finished. I landed in the top two-thirds and crossed the line a little over an hour after I started. I might have broken the one hour mark if not for all the lines at the obstacles, but really, those mandatory rest breaks were awfully nice.

The whole thing was a blast and I'm so glad I did it. I was worried I wouldn't be able to make it, that my knee wouldn't hold up, all the usual concerns. But it all happened. I like to say that I won't know where my wall is until I hit it, and while I wondered a few times today, I don't think I've hit it yet.

The search continues.