Run For Your Lives Race Recap

When you sign up for a RFYL event, you know that you will be getting a good time.  Not only are there obstacles and Zombies but also an Apocalypse party to top off the effort of the run.  This was my first mud run and I have to say that I am glad I started here. The concept of the race is really fun.  You are doing this obstacle course run with flags around your waist (a la flag football) and if you make it to the end with at least 1 of your 3 flags left you are a survivor.  If you have no flags left… well I hope you like brains.  The race is a 5k and the entire course was straight up and straight down the entire time so there really wasn’t much actual running happening out of anyone. Those hills were pretty insane and I have to say, 2 days out and I am still Sore (yes with a capital "s").  I have a feeling that I am still going to be sore tomorrow as well.

 

We made it! Everything was marked well with these giant signs

  

The Husband and I were running the 11:30 wave and about a week before we got an email saying that we should get there 2 hours early for number pickup and parking.  I don't know if they were just being overly conservative or if they tend to have backup but I thought the organization was great.  From parking, to waiver signing, to number pickup it was probably a 15 minute process?  The only problem I had was that they had The Husband's number in the folder but mine was missing.  The volunteer wasn't sure what to do so she asked someone else, they gave me a new number, and I was on my way in maybe 2-3 minutes.  Very quick and painless!

One of the many people in costume wandering the party area

From there we headed over to the “party” area and where the starting flag was. They had plenty of restroom facilities and a couple places to grab a bite to eat and grab the one free beer you get by tearing the tag off your race bib. This area of the event was really fun.  They had 2 DJ’s that were hosting games like musical chairs and an Ohio trivia game and they were hilarious and high energy so that in turn had the entire crowd pumped up.  Walking around we were able to see the zombies being made up for the course, people walking around in costume and even a couple of caged zombies to have your picture taken with.

10 minutes from the start time the DJs announced our wave.  They didn’t monitor who was jumping into each wave so I realized we could have gone into any of the earlier waves while we stood there waiting for the last hour and a half.  The starting cage (I can’t think of anything better to call it- 2 long lengths of 15ft tall chain length fence) was separated into 3 sections: Appetizer, Entrée, and Dessert.  Clever.  They actually released each wave in waves as well.  Appetizers went first and were given a minute or so before the Entrées were released.  I liked this because it spread people out enough that you didn’t feel choked but you also had safety in numbers while going through the groups of zombies.  Each time we would come up on a horde of  them we would all actually wait until we had a pretty good crowd of 20 or more to run through to give ourselves more chances to get through with flags intact. Everyone was helping everyone and people with zero flags left would try to run interference and help those with flags left make it through.

Hill right out of the starting gate.  You can see it go up and turn to the left.  There were zombies waiting there =)

The obstacles weren’t overly tough.  Some examples were simple mazes with zombies hidden inside, monkey bars, a balance beam over a water hole, a slide into a pool of red water, and 2-3 different obstacles you needed to crawl army style under.  The most notable obstacle that gave me pause is the very last one which is chain link fence that they had set up parallel to the ground that you needed to crawl under.  It was a very tight fit, very muddy underneath, and I must also mention it was electric.  I got shocked once and it was a mild shock like you would get from an electric fence meant to keep horses in.  Not terrible but a little jolt to keep you moving.  I saw a few people start under and suddenly start backing out because the shock surprised them.  One obstacle was out of order essentially so that was a bummer.  It was a building that should have been dark with fog and pieces of charged electric fence hanging down but the fog wasn’t working.  Because of that you could just walk through and avoid the pieces of fence.   

The Husband- Before

Me- before

The real obstacle in all of this was the course itself and the zombies.  There were some killer hills to the point that you almost needed to grab trees to go up them and they would station 10-20 zombies to run through right at the top of these hills.  It was TOUGH but oh so fun!

Lots of waiting zombies for the last large obstacle

I only have couple of complaints for the after race portion.  You can only check something that will fit in a ziplock bag meaning nowhere to check your clothes for after the race so you have to walk all the way out to car and back to the venue to the changing tents and it was a pretty good walk.  This wouldn’t be a big deal if you were planning to stay and hang out but we were not so we actually just changed out by the cars in the back hatch of my SUV.  I think maybe they should incorporate a bigger bag check or put the changing tents out by the parking area. The other complaint is that the showers were not working when we came out of the course but by the time we had gotten our keys from the checked bags and started walking out we saw it was working again.
 

After =)

In all, the race was a great one and if they come back to Ohio next year we will probably be doing it again.