Running

As I mentioned in my previous post, perhaps the best scene in 28 Weeks Later is the opening scene. Part of what makes this scene so good is the extremes of emotions covered in such a short amount of time. Robert Carlyle's character goes from a loving exchange with his wife, to making the decision to abandon her to save his own life, to running for his life. For me the running part was especially terrifying. The mindless hordes of the 28 [time demarcation] series are fast moving. Since they aren't actually zombies, this speed is entirely plausible. However, this makes them that much more scary. If zombies could move as quickly as the "infected", we (as in the human race) would be totally screwed. Luckily, zombies cannot move this quickly, even if they are freshly reanimated. Contrary to the terror of this opening scene, it actually drove home the fact that our speed is our best tool to fight the zombies.

With this in mind I've resumed a regular running schedule. The ability to do an all-out sprint (like Robert Carlyle) can be invaluable when trying to escape a closing in zombie horde, however, this situations will (hopefully) be few and far between. Rather, endurance is the name of the game. I quote Max Brooks:

"The fact that a zombie will never stop, never tire, and will shamble after you until you drop dead from exhaustion is what keeps me up at night." (WashingtonPost.com).

You need to be able to outrun a zombie, and continue to outrun until you can put together an effective counterattack. Think of running as buying time. I want to be able to access levels of endurance that will give me the necessary time to fight back. So with that in mind, I'm trying to run several miles each day, with the goal of increasing both my speed and distance so that I will have sufficient endurance when the necropalypse rolls around.