Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Run for your life

To be honest I don't particularly enjoy jogging like some people seem to. Once the weather started to improve here recently I decided I would take it up again but I knew I needed some kind of extra incentive to motivate me. The GerMann and I follow the zombie TV series The Walking Dead and when I heard about a zombie jogging themed app I decided to give it a try!


The full app for your smartphone costs about four euro but I went for the smaller version that is focused on training you for a 5k marathon and costs half that. The idea is that you listen to it while you jog and using GPS it can determine your route and speed. There are different chapters or levels and as your running improves the story progresses. You are known as "Runner 5" during a zombie apocalypse world and you are sent out on mini missions to help the base camp, such as to find medical kits or bring back supplies.


The story began with an exciting start when my helicopter crash-landed into an area surrounded by zombies who I had to then escape to reach the base camp. Through my earphone I had the voice actors telling me whenever any were close and when that happened, they would shout "move!" and I had to run faster. It was really quite realistic - I could hear zombie groaning in my ear if I wasn't running fast enough!


At one point I was getting really into it and nearly jumped out of skin when a cyclist whizzed past me from behind just as I could hear zombie groaning in my earphones. And I found myself scanning my terrain for possible weapons to defend myself from a zombie attack..such as big sticks or rocks.

I've only done a few missions so far and the first was the most exciting. The ones after that so far have just been more or less training drills with a mixture of walking then running in short bursts back at the base camp.


What's good though is that you can choose your playlist from music on your phone and the songs will be interspersed throughout the story. However, it made me laugh at one point as just after escaping a zombie, the Sugababes Get sexy song blasted into my ear which somehow just didn't seem appropriate during a zombie apocalypse!

I've signed up for a 6km marathon in less than six weeks so I'm going to have to try to aim to get out running twice a week if possible. Once I've completed more "missions" in the app I'll let you know how I found it!

4 comments:

  1. If anyone suggests doing burpees to get ready, just slap them. Hard.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh hells yeah I love this app! While I like the after-effects of jogging, I tend to get bored by it quickly, so this app was the best thing to ever happen to my running life. Though after three weeks of the 5k I hurt my knee and had to take a long break. But I am thinking when I restart I want to start with the normal app because I found this one a tab boring, a little light on the story. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I HATE jogging but this sounds amazing!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. No smartphone, no run! That's my mantra. I like to use runtastic in conjunction with spotify the best out of all the apps I've tried. Whatever helps get me moving though...

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome