Fitness Friday: Mankato Zombie Run

This past weekend, my daughter and I completed the Mankato Zombie Run. It was only a 3K run and very do-able for her. She asked me during the winter if she could do a run with me and I told her about this zombie run and a mud run that had a kids race that was longer than 1/4-1/2 mile and this is the one she picked.

This top picture is after we finished the race and got our "medals". My daughter was disappointed they weren't real medals and I have to agree with her. They were just plastic things and seem much less official than a metal medal.

The next are a series of pictures of our makeup that we had them put on us. We had originally planned to be zombies as well as runner zombies, but my daughter was started to get overheated (it was 83 and humid when we parked the car and 88 and even more humid when we were leaving) and so we just did the race and got cleaned up. The race went through woods for most of it, so it was cooling and she felt better AFTER running than before when we stood outside in a very slow line for zombie makeup. If I had not paid extra to be a zombie I would not have wanted to stand in line at all.

Here is a closeup of my makeup. The volunteer doing my makeup did a great job and she seemed to take a lot of pride in getting it done just how she pictured. My injuries were made with a combination of latex, tissue, oatmeal, makeup, and blood. I would have never guessed some of the supplies used, so this was quite a learning experience. The latex injuries just peeled off afterwards, which was nice because that was the easiest part of my makeup removal.

My daughter didn't like the feeling of anything dripping on her so she only had paint on her face and blood on her clothes, whereas I am kinda a bloody, gory mess.

I actually wore this tank when I did the Color Run and had recently tossed it to the rag pile but took it out when I remembered I needed an outfit I didn't mind if it got trashed to run in. These are my paint pants, which I cut off just above the knee, but I learned jeans are not good to run in at all.

As far as the actual race, my daughter said she had fun. I was perturbed by several things, but I would approach the run differently if I ever do it again with her. First of all, they asked that kids and parents with kids run in the first 2 heats (which I understand is different than what they did last year) and so the zombies were anxious to grab those flags and were brutal. They were not trying to be zombies as much as they were trying to play flag football. And they should have BACKED OFF on the kids. There was a little boy in tears when his flags were taken and we not even done with 1K. This is supposed to be a fun run.

Also, I was so frustrated that I was getting flags pulled off when I was trying to wait for my daughter to find away around zombies that had her cornered. I paid for an entry because I wanted the "medal" and the t-shirt too. Next time I will just do the free parent chaperone entry and not worry about getting anything and not be frustrated that these zombies were out to prove something. Then, when you are finishing up there was a ton of zombies before you could finish. They were certainly trying to make sure you finished with no flags (no flags = no medal).

Another thing, there were a couple zombie invaded buildings that were dark that you had to go through and after the first one where they jumped out scaring kids my daughter was very hesitant to do the next building.

There needs to be better zombie education in order for this to be fun. This is not flag football - you are zombies and zombies do not move quick, you do not jump out in dark buildings to scare children, back off stealing all the flags from kids and their parents. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FUN RUN!

Oh! And they HAD health packets with extra flags you could use, but guess what - some boy who was running faster than us grabbed many of the packets so that by time the 2nd heat came through there were NO health packets for all the rest of the heats. Some adult zombie on the course had mentioned a kid ahead of us had all his flags and was carrying along 6 flags (what he had left) and would just replace as they were stolen. How crappy is that!

I had fun being made up as a zombie and my daughter said she had fun. So, that was our takeaway. If I ever do the run again at her request, I will be a free chaperone and we will apply our own makeup at home rather than standing in the sun for so long. I think the idea of it all is good and could be more fun.