Run For Your Lives Zombie 5K: An Undead Apocalypse in Hialeah

Courtesy of Run For Your Lives

Let's face it: Even if you're a champion sprinter on the race track, wouldn't you pick up a little speed if zombies were out to eat your brains? Even the exercise-averse are likely to hightail it with the hungry undead on their tails.

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That's the concept of Reed Street Production's Run For Your Lives, a 5K where participants can, as the name suggests, run for their lives - or, get zombiefied and play predator instead.

The first edition of this sporty bloodbath launched in Darlington, Maryland, last October, and more than 10,000 people participated in the carnage as runners, zombie predators, or spectators. Now, the race has expanded to 12 cities nationwide -- and the zombies are set to invade Hialeah on February 9, 2013.

Courtesy of Run For Your Lives

Like a blood-and-guts version of flag football, runners are given a belt with three flags. In order to stay alive, each must make it to the finish line with at least one intact.

Along the course, participants have to dodge their zombie foes through obstacles like slides, blood pits, smoke houses, and other crazy challenges that change from race to race. If zombies steal all three flags, the runner is officially worm food, but there are extra flags strewn throughout the course to help runners survive, video game-style.