If you want to run your first marathon in your 50s, it helps to be chased by zombies

A 56-year-old runner begins a first marathon while feeling depressed and stuck for years. To regain momentum, the runner chooses marathon training and uses an interactive smartphone game, Zombies, Run!, as motivation. The game guides the runner through a post-crash setting where a voice directs movement to safety among undead. Short prompts require running fast, which feels challenging at mid-50s. The audio adventure uses strong voice acting and immersive delivery to make exercise feel less like fitness work. During runs, the runner collects and loses items that affect story progress and resources for building a base in the app. Training follows a novice plan with weekly short runs and longer weekend runs that gradually increase over 18 weeks.

"At 56, I am running my first marathon, an old, fat, bald dad surrounded by millennials in body-hugging Lycra and smiles that look AI-generated. But I am ahead of them. For they are only competing for positions and personal bests, and I am being chased by zombies. The black dog of depression hit me around the time of my last birthday. I didn't feel I had achieved anything of note for an eternity."

"I decided to kill two circling, carcass-sniffing vultures with one stone and run my first marathon. I started off accompanied by audiobooks, but when Ben Elton's autobiography got a bit whiny, I remembered Zombies, Run! an interactive running game for smartphones that came out years ago. That became my running companion. You start in the ruins of a shot-down chopper, with the voice in your ears trying to guide you to safety through the ranks of the undead."

"The interaction comes via short sections where you are told to run fast rather than lope. This is a challenge because sprinting is on that list of things you just can't or won't do in your mid-50s, along with sleeping all night without getting up for a pee, waiting in line at funfairs and anything to do with kale. It is a well-made audio adventure. The voice acting is superb, especially Phil Nightingale as Sam Yao, your run operator."

"As you run, you pick up or lose items and resources: some are plot critical, others can be used to build out your base on the phone app. I am doing the Hal Higdon Novice Marathon Training Program, involving three short runs during the week and a long run at weekends. The distances slowly increase over 18 weeks. For the first few weeks, I am doing three- or four-mile runs during the week and six- to 10-mile runs at t"

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