Toronto gets infected with zombie 5K

Riverdale Park East is ground zero for Heart and Stroke Foundation fundraiser

CPR makes you undead.

That’s the motto of the Running Dead, a five-kilometre obstacle course that took place on Sunday, pitching human runners against zombies.

The run was in the heart of Toronto, at Riverdale Park East and was attended by many participants.

Partial proceeds from the run went to the Heart & Stroke Foundation.

[googlemap src=”
View Larger Map“]

Riverdale Park East was Toronto’s ground zero for zombies and the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

“It’s about raising awareness and raising funds,” said Enza Ruscillo, manager for Community and Ethnic Engagement with the foundation. “We’re raising awareness for the new way of administering CPR.”

The new way of CPR omits the traditional mouth-to-mouth technique and focuses solely on heart compressions.

“One of your obstacles is called Reset Your Heart,” said J.P. Richards, co-founder of the Running Dead.

“We have a CPR trainer down there and people have to perform 120 heart compressions on dummies.”

The Running Dead plans to spread the zombie virus across the country. In early 2014 the run, zombies and all, sets out over 14 cities, from Hamilton to Vancouver.

Richards was delighted with the turnout and the ease of working with the city of Toronto.

“People complain about the city being a pain to work with,” Richards said. “But they’ve been great with us. I just wanna give them a shout out, they’ve really been generous with us.”

The Heart & Stroke Foundation aims to raise money and teach CPR to run participants.

“The turnout’s amazing,” Ruscillo said. “We’re really happy to get us out there and ensuring that Canadians live free of heart disease and stroke. Together we can make it happen.”

About this article

By: Ali Raza
Posted: Oct 29 2013 10:51 pm
Edition:
Filed under: Events News
Multimedia:
Topics: