Seven waves before our wave - Wave 18, by the way - we were already waiting in the pre-holding area. Aside from being too excited to get my mojos on, I was also searching for a friend who would be running in an earlier wave. Waves 14, 15, 16, 17 were called. Finally the booming voice of the announcer called out 'Wave 18 in the holding area! Calling Wave 18, please proceed to the holding area to be briefed!' At the holding area were three lanes, namely 'Appetizers', 'Main Course' and 'Desserts' for the first, second and third lanes of each wave, respectively. Getting hold of a medal in mind, we chose to join the 'Appetizers' lane only learning of the fallback later in the course of the race. Final instructions were given and after a countdown, we were off! Singlet guy from the same lane rushed forward with amazing speed and pacing. Zombies already in the field but adrenaline kicked in helping me dodge the zombies. Pretty much I have to control myself from roundhouse kicking or punching at the very least the zombies that were in the way.
EK's main gate near the ticket booth was also plagued with zombies. One nearly got my flag but thank heavens I got past that football player zombie. More zombies roamed the Midway Boardwalk. Runner zombies were, honest-to-goodness, chasing some runners around until they got a flag. Been a victim of two so there went my two flags. One left and before I even reached Jungle Log Jam, I was stumped and left with no life flags left. There, I saw the friend I was talking about with another high school batch mate and her younger sister. Wasn't that coherent but I did hear that she dove for dear life. Pretty much breezed through the majority of the track because zombies won't be looting any life flags from me.
Although I thought of grabbing another runner's flag whenever there was a chance for me to do it, superego dressed with a superego-enhancing costume (I was wearing my Type A Senior Scout uniform - upper half at least - with a Rover Scout neckerchief and jogging pants, forgive me Lord Baden Powell for the disdain act of doing so) told me not to. So I never did. At least, I got through most of the zombies and even said 'Hello's and 'Hi's to some. But everything changed when a free life flag was given. I began to stick with groups even if I didn't know them. Thankfully, we reached the last stop which was the haunted house which served as a bottleneck of the race since only groups of 5 were allowed inside at a time. There goes my sneaking skills again, grouping with another clique just to get in. And it dawned on me: I. LOST. MY. BIB NUMBER. Fuckity fuck fuck. Good thing they had contingency plans for such situations. I did get a 'Human Survivor' medal for finishing the race but my time wasn't good enough to get into the Top 3 of our Wave which were given additional incentives - in contrast to the last Outbreak, which I heard that they gave additional prices to the Top 20 per wave. Bummer? Nah. I just survived Outbreak EK! Come on!
Since I lost my bib number, I have to surrender my flag holder to get a loot bag, which was sad because I never get to bring home any souvenir from the run itself, except for the extra life flag I guarded ever so dearly with my equally dear life. The loot bag contained the (awesome) finisher shirt and a liqui-gel capsule of pain reliever. Never really get to use the latter since endorphins still run the course of my vasculature, even enabling me to write this oh-so-happy recount of my night.
To sum it all up, it was fun that I have finally joined Outbreak after two unsuccessful attempts (Nuvali and BGC) and my dream of a night run has been crossed off my bucket list. With an additional of 'while being chased by zombies'.
:)
The spoils of War. (Hopefully) To the coming 'Outbreak's! :D
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