Happy Halloween, readers! Steve and I watch a lot of scary movies. We’ve been revisiting some of our favorites this month, and I just can’t help but realize how many victims would have survived if they just would have been runners (and worn proper footwear)! Classics like Halloween and Friday the 13th are two of the worst culprits when it comes to a slow-moving villain somehow catching a victim who is running away. Although “running away” is really the wrong phrase, because the victims are usually tripping over their own feet and spend most of their time crawling on the ground. But what would the outcome have been if they were runners?
Apparently, Nike realized the same thing during the summer 2000 Olympics and released the following ad that totally nails it! The ad shows Olympian Suzy Hamilton making a successful escape from a Michael Myers lookalike, leaving him wheezing in the middle of the woods. Although the ad was controversial, and was pulled after only airing 3 times, because people felt it was too scary and made light of violence against women (even though a similar ad showing a young man getting attacked by a gladiator was not removed), I actually love it. It’s certainly the perfect Halloween running ad and a great motivation to run off all of that candy I’ve eaten!
Zombieland put it best when it covered the rules of zombie-apocalpyse survival, many of which also apply to surviving attacks from superhuman, horror movie slashers. Rule #1: Cardio. So, if you encounter any slow-moving deranged murderers tonight, be glad you’re a runner and high-tail it out of there!
Meagan is a geochemistry research lab manager, runner, Netflix binge-watcher, and Mom to a rescue dog, a bunny, and a human child. She started running in May 2011 and ran her first half marathon in October 2012, followed by her first marathon in October 2013. In July 2018, she joined the triathlon world and completed an Olympic-distance race. After an extended break (pregnancy/maternity leave), she is making a long-overdue return to running and is preparing for a high-elevation half marathon at Crater Lake National Park in August 2020.