Zombie Run. Geekiness and athletics are like oil and water.

Oh the Zombie Apocalypse! The meme seems to have spread everywhere in Pop-culture these days. As someone who writes zombie stories I suppose that I should be delighted by the sudden upsurge in my favored genre. And in fact I am. Tickled!

There are movies and tv shows and novels aplenty as everyone seems to jump in with both feet. Enough to feel drowned out in the clamor. Zombies in nerd/geek culture have been huge for decades, many of us look forward to the coming zombie apocalypse, to the point that I named my first novel Rapture, reflecting my view that my people look forward to the undead uprising with the same rabid fervor that Evangelical Christians reserve for their expected return of Buddy Christ.

Have you ever discussed what you would do in the advent of the Zombie Apocalypse? This seems to be a rather popular pastime. In fact, such a conversation was the catalyst for starting my stories. Such discussions seem to be growing popular, often starting with the simple question of :what are you planning to do for the zombie apocalypse? (I have a second blog that deals with the apocalypse and necessary skills that will be needed to survive)

My answer? Simple! As I question the quality and quantity of my luck, I plan to eat as many brains as possible until one of the crummy survivors finally puts me down. I don't put my chances at surviving to be very high – in fact I expect to be among the first to come down with the plague. Yeah, I am taking a slightly pessimistic view of my chances at surviving this a highly unlikely catastrophic event.

And now the infection is spreading exponentially, one infected survivor at a time.

Folks have been competing for world records on Zombie walks - a special event where people dress as zombies and parade through the streets of a given city. The city where I currently reside had one in the last few years and I believe that they even took the title.

In the last two years Walking Dead has become a hit television show. Though I've never seen it.

Then there is this Cracked article about why you 'secretly' hope for the Zombie Apocalypse. I am of course calling Bull Shit! I make no secret about any of those reasons. In fact they all seem rather bang on and obvious to me.

The united states military has gone so far as to run practice drills around a zombie outbreak. Really they were focusing on a response against a biological weapons based attack but just mentioning zombies these days really gets people's attention.

The whole world has gotten into the spirit of the mass-extinction of humanity! Now the mainstream society, starting with the athletic type folks are getting down with the sickness. Our society now combined zombies with exercise in the zombie run!  Which makes a bit of sense, as the first rule is always Cardio.

A zombie run? What is this? I imagine you ask, in a hilarious squeaky voice. Two of our friends were entered in the race. Which is why we went. Now I'm passing what I've learned onto you.

Well, here in the Big Grapple they set up a 5k(3 mile) loop in the downtown area. The runners wore white ribbons tucked into their shorts. The zombies were out on the course, waiting, which is what zombies do. The fucking undead don't have any ambition. And when the survivors approached they were mobbed by the zombies, who would go for the ribbons.

Also, there were the runners. So many pretty girls, and like the previously mentioned zombie walk, many of the contestants were dressed up. In the few minutes I was there, I saw at least 2 Batmen, and one Captain America - along with a giant pile of dirty dirty hippies. Shit, it was like a Comic con for Athletes! Mind you, this is a weekend on which Halloween is often celebrated for party purposes. So that could have influenced the showing.

I'm told that there were props and set-pieces to make the experience seem more realistic.

I don't know. I didn't run. My shins are borked(have I mentioned that here or was that my other blog?) and I'm not in near good enough condition to run so much as a mile, much less the full 3. Besides that, it was cold and windy. So we booked it for a coffee shop down-town. I rather wish that the weather had been nicer.

When we returned we found that neither of our friends had survived the gauntlet, but they had managed to complete the course. So huzzah for them.

As for myself I think that I shall stick with my previous plan, flawed though it may be, and try to make a bazillion bucks off my zombie novels and then in turn invest in land and an impressively fortified(and provisioned) homestead.