The Zombie Run



  • My employer helped sponsor a Halloween-themed 5K race, version 1.0, put on by a trade association. Since the sponsorship allowed some complimentary entries into the race for our employees, several of us decided to give it a try.

    It was one WTF after another, starting with a race flyer that didn’t give the date, time or location of the race; didn’t have the name of their web site, contact e-mail address, phone number, or street address; and didn’t even show the full name of the association, just its initials. Race packets (race number, timing chip, T-shirt, swag) weren’t assembled ahead of time, which slowed pre-race packet pickup so badly that the race started 15 minutes late.

    The weirdest part of the whole thing was the “zombies”–students from the local medical school, dressed in gory costumes, stationed on the course every half-mile to chase the runners.

    The next week, participants were e-mailed a link to a survey. Most of the questions were standard stuff, like “How did you hear about the race?” But then there were these two:

    7.  Where [sic] there enough zombie encounters during the ******* Course 5K?

    ∙    No, not nearly enough zombie encounters.
    ∙    Sort of, but I could have used more zombies.
    ∙    Yes! There was a perfect number of zombie encounters for me.
    ∙    No, I gotta have more zombie encounters.

    9.  Overall, how would you rate the *******  Course 5K event compared to other 5Ks or road races in which you have participated?

    ∙    Not that great compared to other 5Ks.
    ∙    It was ok... does not stand out when compared to other 5Ks.
    ∙    Lots of fund [sic] and definitely stands out when compared to other 5Ks.

    Since the surveys were anonymous, we gave them plenty of constructive feedback.



  • Zombies are the new hip thing. You cannot go wrong with anything zombie themed. I would have liked to see a massive wave of zombies chasing the runners for the whole 5k. If you are too slow, you get eaten.

    But the surveys said we did good!


  • @cscastle said:

    My employer helped sponsor a Halloween-themed 5K race

    @cscastle said:

    The weirdest part of the whole thing was the “zombies”–students from the local medical school, dressed in gory costumes, stationed on the course every half-mile to chase the runners.

    Was it billed as a zombie run or not?  If they were saying it was a 5K run with halloween stuff then it's odd, but as long as they say it was a zombie run then there is nothing odd about it.



  •  So the flyer was basically a sheet of paper that said, "[redacted] Course 5K"?



  • @cscastle said:

    It was one WTF after another, starting with a race flyer that didn’t give the date, time or location of the race; didn’t have the name of their web site, contact e-mail address, phone number, or street address; and didn’t even show the full name of the association, just its initials. Race packets (race number, timing chip, T-shirt, swag) weren’t assembled ahead of time, which slowed pre-race packet pickup so badly that the race started 15 minutes late.
     

    Some years back I participated in a Beer Challenge which consisted of a 20K walk where each checkpoint featured barrels of local beer and you imbibed as you checked in. The next day's route was essentially the previous day's in reverse, so you got to hold out for your favourites and had earmarked specific checkpoints containing barrels of interest.

    The organisers waymarked the route with fluorescent arrows, meaning that if you got lost along the way you just looked for a bright pink chevron nailed to a distant tree to get back on track. However, the organisers saw fit to do all the waymarking before the weekend, meaning a doubling up of arrows on all direction points, meaning you'd approach a tree and arrows pointed in two completely different directions without any indication which to follow.

    I pointed out to the organisers that having different colours to distinguish the days, or at least labelling them SAT> <SUN would have made it a bit clearer which one to follow. Their response? "You shouldn't have been so pissed[1]". 

    Other than that, it was a good weekend. But yeah, organisation... spoiled by basic WTFs.

    [1] UK version of "drunk".



  • @operagost said:

     So the flyer was basically a sheet of paper that said, "[redacted] Course 5K"?

    Not much more than that. A large logo, some stuff about its being a
    fundraiser for their foundation that provides scholarship money for a few medical students, brief discussion of door prizes and age-group prizes, an
    entry form to tear off and mail in with the $25 entry fee, and a quarter-page of small-print boilerplate
    legal jargon absolving them from all responsibility for any bad thing that might happen to you during the race. Including (and especially) zombie attack, one would expect.

     



  • @locallunatic said:

    @cscastle said:

    My employer helped sponsor a Halloween-themed 5K race

    @cscastle said:

    The weirdest part of the whole thing was the “zombies”–students from the local medical school, dressed in gory costumes, stationed on the course every half-mile to chase the runners.

    Was it billed as a zombie run or not?  If they were saying it was a 5K run with halloween stuff then it's odd, but as long as they say it was a zombie run then there is nothing odd about it.

     

    It was billed as a zombie run, so it's not like they were unexpected (or even hidden). What I left out of the original post, trying to edit for length, was that they issued each participant a flag-football belt with two flags. The zombies chased the runners to try to take the flags. If a racer finished with at least one flag still attached to their belt, they were entered into a drawing for a prize of $50. Again, we knew this up front.

    Most of the zombies were pretty cool about it; they chased, but if you made any kind of effort to sprint or dodge, you could get by. There was one zombie who took it way too seriously, though. He'd run you right out into traffic to get your flag, safety be darned. He went after one pre-teen girl, who, trying to avoid him, ran into the path of one of my co-workers and knocked her down.

    It was the most poorly-organized race I've ever seen, in 25-plus years of racing.

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @cscastle said:

    There was one zombie who took it way too seriously, though. He'd run you right out into traffic to get your flag, safety be darned. He went after one pre-teen girl, who, trying to avoid him, ran into the path of one of my co-workers and knocked her down.

    Ah, we found TRWTF.



  • @FrostCat said:

    @cscastle said:
    He went after one pre-teen girl, who, trying to avoid him, ran into the path of one of my co-workers and knocked her down.

    Ah, we found what happened to Jimmy Saville's body.

     

    Back to topical UK humour.



  • @OhNoDevelopment said:

    Zombies are the new hip thing. You cannot go wrong with anything zombie themed.
    Case in point: games on Steam. I've been inundated with Call of Duty zombie DLCs, but for some very obscure reason there exists a zombie DLC for the Railworks rail simulator.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5QggbEWtGQ


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @OhNoDevelopment said:

    Zombies are the new hip thing. You cannot go wrong with anything zombie themed.

    The next big thing will be removing zombies.

    Dawn Of The Dead And (no) Zombies - aka Mallrats

    Zombieland And (no) Zombies -  aka Rollercoaster Tycoon

    Pride and Prejudice And Zombies And (no) Zombies - Hilariously inverts the zombie genre by turning it into a coming of age story.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @OhNoDevelopment said:

    Zombies are the new hip thing. You cannot go wrong with anything zombie themed.

    The next big thing will be removing zombies.

    Dawn Of The Dead And (no) Zombies - aka Mallrats

    Zombieland And (no) Zombies -  aka Rollercoaster Tycoon

    Pride and Prejudice And Zombies And (no) Zombies - Hilariously inverts the zombie genre by turning it into a coming of age story.

    Funny you should mention that.  Behold I give you Warm Bodies: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1588173/ a zombie movie with zombies turning into people! OMG!!!111


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