The Zombie 5k while in theory is super cool and awesome, etc; however in practice it was not worth the ticket price and especially not worth the drive.

On top of the drive from DC to an hour past Baltimore, we spent 2 and a half hours going 4 miles just to park in a very muddy field without any one directing cars once you paid. We turned onto the road containing the last 4 miles of our drive at 10:52am and we parked at ~1:20pm.

The conversation in the car took a turn to silence after about an hour when the “I have to pee” phase began. Luckily, the runner we were supporting was about 20 minutes ahead of us and was able to get to her 2 o’clock race wave time with a whole 25 minutes to spare.

As we waited in yet another line for a school bus to take us to the race site, we chatted with folks in front of us whose race wave time was noon. We were dropped off to yet another half mile walk to the campgrounds and were finally through registration and inside the venue at 2:15.

Once inside, we were starving and each ate a manwich version of pulled pork (yuck) then realized the only spectating part of our spectators pass was the finish line - crap. 

So we wiggled around the grounds to a semi-maze-like hay obstacle that had a great dead-end that the crowd cheered runners into - yelling things like “it’s clear! it’s clear!” “no zombies” “hurry! this way” only for them to cow pen themselves in between the real exit that they just passed and a zombie.

Back at the finish line there was a “safe” (meaning zombie-free) obstacle where the crowd cheered runners to take a mudslide underneath a fence. That was pretty sweet and also pretty messy for both the runners and spectators. 

So the Zombie 5k goes on the “never again” slash “bucket list” of strange fall activities. Hopefully, since this is the first one ever they’ll listen to feedback, pay less attention on media/promos/marketing and invest in straightforward logistical infrastructure.