Tag Archives For: 5k

28 Oct, 2014

Monster Dash 5K

/ posted in: Family, Fitness

I took Z to her first 5K on Saturday. I didn’t really mean to. I signed up because it was a costume-wearing opportunity. Then I realized that they had trick or treating so I decided to take her. But, I didn’t know what to do with her while I ran so I decided that she was doing the 5K too.

I was going to be a fairy but at the last minute I couldn’t find my wings so I went with witch.

Z was Merida from Brave.

We got there early to sign her up and this guy was running around sneaking up on people.

Z completely lost her mind. Oh the joys of an autistic kid who is not firmly tethered to reality and who I forgot to medicate! She ended up screaming and crying because he looked at her. I finally got her to shut up by threatening to take her picture and post it on Facebook. Yeah, if it was true terror that wouldn’t make you shut up so fast.

We got to the start and I explained that because we were going to walk that we would go to the back of the group and let the fast people be up front. She lost her mind. She started yelling that she was a fast person. I said that no, actually she wasn’t and besides I meant people like my dad who race all the time are at the front. She wasn’t having it. I told her that I was going to stay right behind her but if she got separated from me in the initial crowd that she should go to the side of the trail and wait. She said, “You’re right you’re going to be behind me because I’m faster than you.” I’m not opposed to some trash talking but this kid is nasty and out of touch with the reality that she is an overweight, out of shape couch potato. She truly believed that she was fastest person there.

The race starts and she takes off at a full sprint. She’s weaving through people like a maniac. I chase her down in time for her to drop the crown off her head and stop to pick it up and almost get mowed down by a herd of runners. I tell her to stop it because she’s got 3 miles to go and can’t keep this up. She takes off again. I catch up to her at about 1/4 mile where she slows down to breathe. I order her to walk. She does for a few steps and then runs again. At about 1/2 mile she stops and says, “I don’t feel so good.” No kidding, kid.

From there I had her run to landmarks and then walk. We also worked on pacing. She only had a full out sprint and a walk. I set a really slow jogging pace and had her keep up with me for sections.

There were people in costume on the trail.

Eventually we came up to the guy that she was terrified of previously. I told her that all she could do was run. She ran screaming.

It was a nice walk along the towpath of the old canal.

At 1 mile in the leaders were coming back. She started trash talking them. “Why do you have to run so fast? Why are you showing off?”

At 1.5 mile I heard her invoking my father like a deity, “Oh, Grandpa Ron, if you could only help us now!”

I decided she needed a goal so I pointed to some walkers a ways ahead of us and told her that our goal would be to pass them. I was not specific enough. When we passed them, she turned to them and said, “We’re beating you!” I told her that they now had permission to beat her right into the ground if they so desired. For our next people we decided to try to pass I told her that we were going to do it “without being a jerk” and made her repeat it several times.

When they passed us in return she wanted to run but was worn out. She made a big show of “allowing” them to pass her.

At one point she started complaining about me. “How is it even possible that you are faster than me?” I told her that I had longer legs, was in better shape, and worked out more. She didn’t like that explanation. I also told her that I was strolling and asked if she wanted to see me walk fast. She declined.

Soon we were back to the guy she was afraid of. He remembered her and was going to leave her alone but I told him to make her run. He took a step towards her and she screamed and ran.

Flying monkey guy and I stood back and watched her run shrieking down the trail and then high-fived.

I’m just glad we didn’t get chased by these guys.

That game always stressed me out.

We finished in 50 minutes which is my slowest 5K ever but it was good for her to get some exercise.

04 Aug, 2013

Run For Your Lives

/ posted in: Fitness

Yesterday I ran in the Run For Your Lives 5K in PA. I signed up a long time ago because you could both run and be a zombie. Somehow I missed the fact entirely that this was an obstacle race. I swear at that time the website didn’t say a thing about it. The site has been totally redesigned since I signed up.

I started out running. You get a belt like in flag football with 3 flags on it. When your flags are taken, you are dead. I was dead by the second set of zombies. At first the race was fun. I liked the part where we ran through this long tunnel in the dark with zombies jumping out at us. It was all slippery on the floor and I had a guy try to pass me and he wiped out.

After that part we went into about 100 yards of waist deep water. Everyone was walking after we got out of that. It was so muddy and sloppy that it was dangerous to run. There were 4 foot walls to climb over. I got good at those since there were a lot. I did a belly crawl in a mud pit under barbed wire. That’s where I got hurt. I scraped up my knees pretty badly and had blood running down my leg. I skipped the later mud crawls because I couldn’t tell under all the mud how open the wounds were but decided not to stick it in mud again. I also skipped anything with electric shocks because I’m not stupid.

There was a center section that just sucked. It was two huge uphills in the mud. I hate sliding downhill so took the downhills slowly. By the end of the course they started having obstacles made of hay mounds you have to go over. My raising came out there. I spent much of my formative years climbing up to get bales down for Spirit. I was passing people going up and down those piles. I went up one and realized that you had to jump down into the blood pit to get off of it. I just hoped my wounds weren’t that bad and jumped into the waist deep water.

By the end the zombies were hugging you and giving you high fives. What an encouraging bunch of ghouls!

This is me after the race. That shirt was white when I started. My medal says infected because zombies killed me. There weren’t a lot of survivor medals that I saw.

Then I got to be a zombie!

I went as Zombie Medusa.

There was an assembly line of makeup artists working on people. The last step was being doused with blood.

More blood was thrown on the zombies before we went out on course.

I was working my patch of ground with the bride and groom.

I was the first zombie on course. We were told to be gentle and give them hope since there were 11 sets of zombies to go through. I let anyone who didn’t look like they exercised regularly pass by. I only grabbed people’s flags if they came right at me. Then it was a challenge. Other people did this too. They’d get in people’s faces and growl but not take their flags.

There was another group of zombies that we could see. They had chasers who would run with people. I was stumbler so I just stood my ground and could grab anyone who got close. The chasers would let most people go by but mostly liked to scare them. I saw one runner panic when one came up to her. She stopped, covered her eyes, and screamed. I had one man throw his wife at me when he ran behind her. I yelled, “He pushed you! Get him!” and didn’t take her flag. I figured he was a dead man anyway.

The last group of runners we saw started with a bunch of Marines. They were coming fast and a zombie behind me said, “Ok, this is a little scary.” They came right at us so we had to kill them. They were too cocky. By the time they hit the zone 3 zombies that we could see they were mostly dead. The slower runners in that group with them were doing better, especially since we were walking up the road as they were running past and we started distributing the flags we had back to the runners!

Here’s the zombies we were next to at work.

Clean up last night was tough. I had fake blood all through my hair and had to scrub off makeup. Some of the dirt I thought I had on my legs were bruises. I look like I’ve been beaten on my knees and thighs and there is big bruise on my right forearm that I can’t explain.