My First "Bad" Zombies, Run! Mission

This was my first run back to the regular missions in the first season of the “Zombies, Run!” smart phone game. I took a couple months off to ‘play’ the “Zombies, Run! 5k” game. I had come off a marathon season fraught with injuries. So while I was already a long distance runner, I thought it’d be a good idea to step back, start over, and re-build strength and speed by completing a 5k training cycle. Besides, I heard the 5k program was written to take place between Mission 1 and 2 of the regular mission game and had additional content to the regular story. Well I didn’t want to miss any content! :) 

So I took my time completing the 5k program and felt great! I definitely feel like I am stronger, faster and ready to resume the regular missions. And tonight was the first run. 

I choose mission 3 for my re-entry to the regular game as I wanted to run the earlier missions over as a reminder of all the details of the story. And the first thing that was a bummer, was that I confirmed that a ‘friend’ I made during the 5k training didn’t survive long after my last 5k run. I suspected that during my last run of the 5k program, and it was confirmed in mission 3. 

Shortly after that bit of bad news, I got chased by Zombs. During which, I had to stop and fix Kenai’s pack. We weren’t stopped for long, but I heard the zombies getting louder and louder as the started to overtake me during the game. 

I started running again as soon as I had Kenai’s pack situated and ran hard. I heard the narrator call “15 meters”, then “5 meters” as usual. Then the narrator said something I couldn’t quite hear because the sound of the Zombs were so loud! In fact, they were loud and sounded like they were in a feasting frenzy!

What was this? I know the app was updated a couple times while I was playing the 5k version. Was this new? Did I evade the Zombs? I didn’t hear the narrator say, “Zombies evaded.” as I was used to. 

Soon, we were in chase mode again. I had both dogs tethered to a belt at my waist. I noticed Heather was ahead of me but Kenai was dragging behind. Neither of my dogs drag. Ever. So I turned around to check on Kenai. She wasn’t limping or looked distressed. But she was running so slow she was actually a drag on me. 

Meanwhile, I hear the zombs getting louder and louder in my headphones. So I call to the dogs, “Come on!” and ran. Again I heard the narrator say something about zombies but I didn’t hear “Evaded”. 

I pulled off to the side to check on Kenai. She’s never drags behind like that and I wanted to check her feet and pack to make sure nothing was amiss. Everything was fine. I usually put two pounds of weight in her pack to even things out between her and Heather. Maybe she was just too tired tonight for the weight? 

Before I took the weights out, I looked at my phone. The app builds a run log during your run. So you can look back and see what was going on, (what songs have played and what bit of story was told.) Well, it also logs zombie chases. On both chases, it showed I had to dump supplies to distract the zombies. (If you don’t run fast enough you have to dump supplies to distract them so you can get away.) I had never had to dump supplies before. So that made me mad. But not only that, on my phone, was the notice “Zombies Caught You”. 

What? What!?

When I had played the regular mission games before that had NEVER happened and I felt like I was running better tonight than ever. I was NOT happy. I figured something must be wrong or they updated the app to be more challenging. 

At any rate, I still had to finish my run. So I took the weights out of Kenai’s pack and carried them for her. That meant I ran with a one pound weight in each hand. Yeah, that’ll make me slower for the next zombie chase. Great. 

There were two more chases. Both of which I was able to evade the zombies. It just didn’t make sense. 

When I got home, I checked the settings on both my phone and my profile on the Zombies, Run! website. I figured there must be a place where you can set your chase pace or something or find out that my GPS was intermittent and that’s why it thought I wasn’t faster than the zombs. 

But no. There was no place to adjust chase paces and according to the run map, my GPS had been working just fine the whole run. 

I turned my attention to the chase graphs on my zombies profile. For each zombie chase there is a graph that shows a flat red line representing the speed at which the zombies chase you and a blue line that shows Runner 5’s pace. That line is usually not flat. 

In the first chase, I saw my blue line was lower than the zombie’s red line for the first 20 seconds of the chase. That corresponds to when I was fixing Kenai’s pack. But I was well above the zombies’ pace for the rest of the chase. So it didn’t make sense they would ‘catch’ me. 

I checked the other three chase graphs and my blue line showed a faster pace than the zombs the whole time. So why did one of them show I was caught? I have no idea. Is there something wrong with the app? I don’t think they did this by design. And I couldn’t find any information on the site about what’s the criteria for evading zombies. 

So I trolled the internet for answers. I found a great post from Mur Lafferty of Escapist Magazine that indicated you must increase your speed by roughly 10% for about a minute to evade the zombs. This made sense. 

I don’t really have more than one speed I run at. Unless you count “Slow” and “Slightly less slow” as two different speeds. So while three of the four chases showed that I was above the zombies’ speed, I may not have sped up more than 10% and that’s why I was caught. 

Good thing the zombies don’t eat you when they catch you. Rather, they take all the supplies you gathered and you arrive back at base empty handed. Not good! 

Which is the other thing that surprised me this time out. When I got back, I visited my base online to allocate the supplies I gathered. But there were no supplies to allocate. I thought the site didn’t sync with my app like it does automatically when I end a mission. So I did a manual sync. Still no supplies showed. I figure the site was having issues. 

Nope, when the zombies get you, they take ALL your supplies. Even the ones you pick up AFTER you’re chased. Damn zombies!

So, there are a few changes in the regular game since I’ve been gone. Much more challenging. But I like a challenge. Now that I know the deal, those zombies had better watch out! I’ll be back, and I’m bringing my cricket bat with me!

A Guest Post from My Friend Amy K.

This is my friend Amy and her "Goofy" husband Chris:

They are two of our friends who've kindly endured about three years of listening to me and Kris talk nothing but running, and racing and our addiction to endorphins. They are kind and patient people. Which is just one reason why we love them.

Amy is the person who introduced me to the Zombies, Run! game. Yeah, she's the one responsible for starting my obsession!  And now she is using the Zombies, Run! 5k training app to train for her first ever 5k! WOOT! (I have the honor of running the 5k with her).

I am so excited for my friend to join the world of racing and expect her to find the same excitement I do in training for and completing an event.  It's hard and sometimes often it hurts. But we love it and it's too hard to describe why. We just tell our friends they have to do it to understand it. Amy is the first of our friends to try it.  And she's starting to understand it. Read on!

While I was out running today, I think I had an epiphany.

For those of you who don't know, I'm training for my first 5K, which I plan on doing on December 9. I am doing a training program called Zombies, 5K, that is a "couch to 5K" training mixed with zombie chases and an interesting story.

My training today started with a 10 minute warmup, followed by interevals of one minute running, one minute walking, and knee lifts. I was in the middle of the first run, and really miserable. My head was down, I was staring at the ground, gasping for breath, counting the seconds until I could stop running. In fact, I could barely lift my feet up. All I could think was "there's no way I can do this -- there's no way I can go through 5 more weeks of training, and the thought of actually RUNNING a 5K is a joke." And then I started thinking about why I was doing this. Why was I putting myself through this misery?

It's a good question. I've had people assume I was doing this to lose weight. And, while that seems to be a side benefit (as evidenced by my jeans that won't stay on without help), that wasn't my goal. It's not for the physical fitness aspect, either, although that seems to be a prerequisite. At first, I thought I was just doing this because the app was kind of cool, and I figured it would be something to do, but the more I thought about it, that really wasn't it either. And then I realized the real reason I'm out there doing this. I dream about running. Not daydreams, but dreams at night. I regularly dream of running, effortlessly. And it feels GOOD in my dreams. It doesn't hurt, I'm not gasping for air, I'm just running. It feels so good in my dreams, I want that feeling in reality, while I'm awake.

All of this passed through my mind in the time it took me to finish the run, walk for a minute, and do my knee lifts. When it was time to run again, I didn't look down, I raised my head. I didn't count the seconds, I lip-synced to the music that was playing. I didn't grimace in pain and stress, I grinned with joy. And I RAN. At the end of the 60 seconds, yes, I was gasping for air (like always). My muscles screamed at me (like always). But the difference was, I felt good.

My pace was still slow, but I'm okay with that. Approaching it with joy made me realize why there are so many crazy people who do this. I am clearly not built for running. I'm seriously overweight. I've got asthma, and some gnarly arthritis in my knees, but, damn it, I'm going to run.

I'm still not getting those elusive endorphins, though.

Don't worry Amy, the endorphins will come later. :) Run on Girl! 

Spooky Halloween Run

First, this is Trooper our "Bat Cat". That was his costume for Halloween. It's too bad we weren't home for the trick or treaters this year because I think they would've really gotten a kick out of him. :)

We weren't home that night because we were out running. 

Kris took Kenai: 

I took Heather: 

Kris and I got a late start. It was good and dark except the moon was almost full. I didn't need a headlamp. But I did wish I had a flasher for Heather. 

So we all started at the same point. But Kris and Kenai took a southern route; Heather and I started running north. There's a bike trail that runs along the boundary of a park. I like running around the park at night. It's quiet and cool; and tonight, it was eerie. 

This was the same trail Heather and I was on when we ran into a skunk! I kept my eyes peeled. As we ran down the path, I noticed the baseball field lights were off. No games tonight. No one else on the path, no one in the park. It was Halloween after all. Everyone was giving candy or getting candy. It was so peaceful. But I was starting to wish I had brought my pepper spray and stun gun. (Yes, usually, when I run at night I run armed).

Now those of you who know me, know I've been playing this running game Zombies, Run! It's a role playing game you play while you are out running. There are character actors and realistic sound effects. And for imaginative people like me, you can just get lost in the game. Oh yeah, and zombies chase you. 

So here I am running in the peace and quiet with my dog. And I start thinking about the zombies. And I remember it's Halloween. And my imagination starts to get active. 

I kept an eye on Heather because she can spot things before I do. She was absolutely unbothered. 

Soon we had to turn off the path and run through some woods to get into the park. This was the spookiest part. The trees make weird shadows and I felt like Heather and I were the only ones around for miles. And like I said, my imagination was having fun!

You know, the only way the zombies get you is either by cornering you some place where there is no exit, or hiding somewhere and surprising you. Otherwise, you can always out run them. 

As I'm mulling this over in my head, we make the turn off into the woods and Heather is still calm as a cucumber. We run through the trees and immediately I see a shadow of a zombie behind a tree to my left! I quickly turn to confront it and... nothing there. I turn back to the trail and I see several shadows to my right. I spin, and... I just see trees. 

It is creepy! But I laugh to myself because there is nothing I'd rather do than run in the peace and quiet with my dog and have my own little "Haunted Run". Besides, the weather was wonderful! Cool and misty with light fog hanging on everything. 

At another point, we run back out of the park and onto a road that runs along the outskirts of a neighborhood. As we ran by I looked down one of the side streets and see the trick or treaters crossing the street back and forth in their cute little costumes. 

We kept running. 

As we were circling back toward our starting point, I realized I needed more mileage. So we made a detour to the airport. There are more trees and a big empty field on the south side. We ran up to the runway fence where we took a break and watch the runway lights while I caught my breath. I let Heather off the leash and let her explore. 

She ran down into a nearby ditch and my imagination saw her running back up with a zombie arm in her mouth. I shook my head and called her. She trotted right up out of the ditch without anything in her mouth and started running right at my side. We ran through the big empty field on our way back to the car, both of us free spirits. Halloween spirits perhaps. :)

We made it back to the car just before Kris and Kenai came running in from the trail we started on. Kris had had just as nice of run as I did. Though he report no zombies on his route. 

The time changed this weekend. I'll be doing most my runs at night. I'll be running with my Zombies, Run! game. I have a feeling I'll be running faster than my average pace though. You know; to keep ahead of the zombies! :)