Run for your lives is 5km race with a few obstacles and hordes of zombies trying steal your life. At the start, each human racer is given three red flags to represent their health.

Instead of running as the living, I wanted to be the zombie and chase after the runners. It was only $25 and included free parking, beer, water, tshirt and metal. You also get a chance to race as the living but you aren’t timed or eligible for prizes.

When you arrive, you aren’t suppose to be a zombie because they do all the transformation for you. You are encourage to wear a costume and I was a retro tennis player. We saw costumes of preggers, sailor scouts, Waldo, ninjas, brides and much more. They can give you a raggy top too or shred clothes you bring. Next, they put blood, skin chunks and bruises on your face and neck.

To finish your look, they spray you with some mud and throw some blood all over your outfit.

The transformation was complete! Everyone looked awesome and dead.

We waited for everyone in the same shift to get transformed and ready. In the meantime, we watched many living runners go by and we were hungry for them.

Finally after an hour, we were directed to our zone 13 with our team, the NOMsters. There were 15 zombie zones in total so we were the third last zone in the woods. To give runners false hope, the staff told us the first 1-5 zones should grab only one flag at a time and the 6-10 zones should grab the first and/or second flag and the last 11-15 zones should grab everything to kill them.

Waves of runner came, some were fully dead and some had one life left. Not many had two full health flags and barely anyone had three. These humans were tricky, cheating (rolling and hiding their flags) and fast! But when you get them, it was so fun crushing their dreams!

Lots of people fell and collided with trees. It’s definitely a rough game. Of course, we didn’t kill them while they were down, we helped them up, gave them a moment and then chased them. Shortly after the start of the game, I broke my finger trying to grab a flag but instead got it caught in a pocket. The rest of the game, I only used my left hand!

My best achievement was this one woman who had three flags near her bum and she was blocked by a group zombies in front of her so I ran up and grabbed all three at one time.

My funniest kill was crushing this guy’s balls along with his last flag since it was in between his legs. He definitely needed a moment to recover.

Our shift ended after 3 hours and we killed it. Three really strong guys were also in our zone and they destroyed it at least 90 kills each. We weren’t too shabby either, I killed about 30 (given I only had my left hand) and Chris killed about 50. Apparently, the kill rate is about 80% so the humans barely had a chance. Without a doubt, we would be back next year!

Here are some tips for humans and zombies;

Humans

• Wear red pants… It doesn’t make the flags stand out as much
• Always go in groups… Don’t tackle a horde alone!
• Be careful, it’s just a game! Don’t break your ankle!
• Use your hands to block and move your flags around to dodge zombies
• Don’t be a cheater and roll up your flags on your belt or hide it from the horde!

Zombies

• Prepare to be called names… Bitch, mean, cunt etc. Don’t be soft.
• Do not leave your stolen red flags lying around… Humans will take them! So wear pockets or bring a purse.
• Sign up as a chaser zombie so you can chase after them. Stumbler zombies aren’t allowed to run but we had lazy chasers too.
• Trick some humans with some stumblers at the start of your zone and then get the chasers after them.
• Chase them after they have ran pass you… So they don’t expect it
• Wear a costume and prepare for the outfit to be destroyed even your underwear. Blood stains right through. White outfits are the best since you see the blood clearly.