One hour, 44 minutes, 25 seconds – my official time in the Atlanta chapter of the zombie run. Yikes.
That’s 66 minutes and one second longer than it took me to finish the course in Maryland. Sure, the mud played a gigantic inhibiting factor in the Georgia run, but who am I to kid that I probably couldn’t have done way better than that time, if I had actually tried, instead of dicking around with my friends? To put it in perspective, literally only 29 people “survived” with slower times than I did. 522 people “survived,” and I ranked 493 out of those times.
The fastest survival time was 39:37:10, which was actually 1:13:80 slower than my Maryland time, to put in perspective just how grueling the mud made the Georgia run. A 41-year old man bettered that time by five minutes, but had apparently lost all his flags, therefore not really “the winner.”
I don’t regret my course of actions during the run, and I still declare that I had more fun this time, screwing around with the zombies, but this is quite an eye-opener for me. In contrast to the Maryland run, I was rarely winded, and my muscles often fatigued before my stamina did, and I know I could have easily crossed in under an hour if I actually put forth the effort, state of survival up for debate.
Upon completion of the Atlanta zombie run, a part of me would be content at never participating again. But a competitive part of me wants a degree of redemption; I don’t have anything to prove, but I still kind of want to end on a really high note.
