Participate in a themed race (like a zombie run or color run).

“The Zombie Run was a 5K Cross Country run with proceeds going to the Special Olympics. Did I mention that I hadn’t ran since October? It was also freezing cold and spitting snow. Good work, Iowa. Good work, silly blogger. We started the race with 8 flags. The goal was to “survive” the race with at least one flag. If all of your flags were removed, you were infected with the zombie virus. The race was on Credit Island. It was a super gloomy day. The island is creepy and full of old military buildings. The setting was quite perfect for a zombie apocalypse. It has been raining for the past two weeks which made the entire course a giant puddle of mud. Because running a cross country race through mud away from zombies wasn’t enough, they also added obstacles. Like hay bales covered in plastic. And plywood slides that were super hard to climb with muddy shoes. Luckily the zombies left us alone on the obstacles but we were zombie fair game after we got off. I made it to the last obstacle with two flags. And then a zombie kid took both of them at the very end. Note to self, avoid children during a zombie apocalypse. Darn zombie kid. Anna and I became zombies.”

“We ran into a trail into the woods and were immediately met by a hungry group of zombies. There were some pretty cool zombies out there! I lost my first flag pretty quick thanks to the creepy clown zombie. Some of the zombies were a little aggressive, but I’m sure the runners were aggressive back. I know I wasn’t, I gave up my flags pretty easily. It did turn into a fun game of cat and mouse a few times. The course was actually pretty challenging with lots of debris, trenches, and uneven terrain. I loved the feeling of being challenged! At one point I fell into a post hole, thank goodness I wasn’t injured! There seemed to be a bit of miscommunication the “Rules of Engagement” as there were pretty aggressive confrontations from runners and zombies alike throughout the whole course. It was a bit confusing the way the course was marked out, I wasn’t ever really sure we were heading the right way.”