Run for your lives!
It’s a Sunday morning. You wake up. You’re in the middle of a zombie outbreak.
Last weekend, a team of Charles Clinkard staff from Head Office and the stores took on a 5K run through Hamsterly Forest with tough obstacles along the way. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, we were constantly surprised by, chased and ‘infected’ by zombies!
Zombies, it turns out, make excellent personal trainers. Of course, they were just people in disguise. Very convincing disguise…
Setting off from the start line with three ‘life tags’ attached to a belt, the team immediately had to cross a river with just a thin rope strung between two trees for support. When one of the trees uprooted, narrowly missing everyone in the water, we knew we were in for tough times ahead!
Across the water, we followed a narrow path and faced our first zombie encounter, dodging past them to scramble back into the river and out on the other side. Then it was a jog up and over a hill, where we found a field full of the infected and several hay-bale obstacles to clamber over.
Next we ascended a muddy path to a rocky waterfall, where we climbed up and into a pitch-black tunnel with water flowing down. Climbing out completely soaked, we ran into the forest and ducked beneath branches, avoiding zombies along the route. We trekked through trenches of knee-deep mud, crawling under logs and cargo nets, hopping across tyres and wading through waist-high water.
Finally we passed under a bridge guarded by the undead and ran back down to base, crossing the river a couple more times just in case we weren’t wet enough already!
No one made it to the end with all of their lives intact. The reanimated corpses — mindlessly shuffling, groaning, decomposing, driven solely by a hunger for human flesh — are inescapable.
When the real zombie apocalypse comes, you might want someone else on your team.
This challenge was a lot tougher than we were expecting, but driven by adrenaline we all made it to the finish line. If you don’t want to get mucky – and we mean head-to-toe, layer-upon-layer of mud – this challenge may not be for you.
But if you’re ready to push yourself, have fun and don’t mind sticking your kit though the washing machine a couple of times, sign up for the next event! Follow Zombie Run UK on Facebook or visit the Zombie Run website for details.
We’ll see you there, though this time we might be the zombies…
