Tag: running

The aftermath, in statistics

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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.

Somebody call my mama, these legs are registered weapons

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

That’s right. Two-time! Two-time! Zombie run winnar!

So while I nurse my sore limbs and achy body parts, let me reminisce about the Atlanta chapter of the zombie run. Despite my trepidations going into the event, I can pretty easily say that I had a good of time as I did in Maryland, despite my reluctance up there too. If anything, I would venture to say that it was more fun than the first, for a myriad of reasoning.

Without much argument, the Atlanta zombie run was executed a million times better than the Maryland one. Granted, the Maryland zombie run back in October had the dubious task of being the inaugural event in which the bar was set, and all its failures and successes were what all the other chapters were to build off of, but the parking debacle and the tedious shuttling really, really hurt it badly. Whether it was superior planning or luck of the draw, Georgia’s venue for the event was far superior in the fact that there was plenty of on-site parking and no shuttles were necessary, and the local police appeared to be in cooperation and ready to deal with the traffic jams that never happened, probably because of the tornadoes or threat of them that ripped through the state the night before.

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Photos: Run For Your Lives! – Atlanta 5K Zombie Run

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m currently pretty sore, my quads ache, my knees sting, and my back and neck even feel kind of stiff right now.  To cut straight to the chase, my friends and I all managed to survive the hometown “Atlanta” chapter of Run For Your Lives!, so for me, that makes two victories, over both Maryland and Georgia.  It was a good bit of fun, and about 5,000 times more muddy and messy than the Maryland debacle was, as evidenced in this image, as well as all the subsequent images.

But I’ll share my thoughts and go into further detail in a dedicated post.  But for the time being, enjoy the sparse images.

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Different, but still kind of the same

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Although I haven’t gushed or exclaimed my excitement over it, tomorrow is the second zombie run I’ll be participating in.  Having done the one in Baltimore, I fully know what to expect this time around, and I kind of fear that I’m still a little ill-prepared physically for the event.  Granted, I also know this time around not to blow myself up so early on, and to essentially not give a shit about time or survival; after all I’ve already done it before, so I’ve little else to prove.  However, regardless of all the things I know to expect, I can’t help but still feel this sense of nerves and apprehension about the event as a whole.

The one positive difference in this is that I’ll have a sizeable number of compatriots in this go-around.  Not to discount my boy cheetos the least bit, as he essentially prevented me from losing all my flags in Maryland, but that event was marred by the poor planning of the event as a whole, ill-preparedness, and the soiled notion that other friends were barred from participation due to the shitty traffic or shitty volunteer management.  This time around, I’m traveling and running with four others, and hopefully there will be better event management in the Atlanta chapter than it was up in Maryland.

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A tribute to the best pair of athletic shoes I’ve ever owned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

With the completion of the muddy and miserable-conditioned zombie run, it’s time I retire these shoes once and for all.  They are without question the best pair of athletic shoes I’ve ever owned, and to say that I’ve gotten my worth out of them is a complete understatement.

Believe it or not, but I’ve had them since 2007.  Now I know that most people who exercise on a fairly regular basis would chide such absurdity as keeping one pair of shoes for so long as I’ve done, but frankly, I’ve never seen the necessity in replacing them.  Either I have tough-like-an-African feet, or I simply got used to and coped with the deterioration of the soles, padding and tread throughout the last five years…

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Photos: Run For Your Lives! Starring Justin Timberlake*

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
*not really Justin Timberlake

I wish I could have taken my camera along with me to take pictures during the whole ordeal, but it’s good that I didn’t. Between the mud, water, and the constant risk of biting it, it probably wouldn’t have made it. Not that there would have really been any time to take any pictures what with the constant sprinting and escaping from the zombies there was the whole time.

In the photos, you’ll see some photographs of the relentless traffic jams to get to just the parking lot, the parking lot itself, where no less than 25 cars got stuck right in front of my eyes, the before, and the bloody aftermath, and cleanup process. Good times, but man, I gotta reiterate how much work lies ahead for this activity’s future endeavors.

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I Ran For My Life and survived the entire experience

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I finished the race in __:__:__, because I didn’t bother to check nor wait for the time results to update before it got so cold that my company and I opted to leave.

I had two flags left (out of three).  I was unaware that I had two, since I was convinced that a zombie had gotten my second one in the same area where I lost my first one, so I played the entire second half of the race as if I had one flag left; very defensively, and took my dear sweet time in order to conserve energy for dodging zombies as not to lose my last flag.

Although I successfully made it through the entire race with flags intact, designating me a “survivor,” I’m not going to boast about how I owned this event, and how I made a bunch of zombies look like Lucy and Ethel, bumbling around trying to catch me, because that’s certainly far from how it went.  I was very lucky to survive, and I was very unprepared.  Really unprepared.

Let’s start from the beginning.

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