What was perturbing about it was that my sense of the sound of running shoes on gravel has always held connotations of happiness and the promise of better things to come. The foreboding sound effects seem to clash....perhaps by design...?
I think the running zombies are sad and scaring. I sat on a bench by the water on a beautiful sonny day and all these people were running by, looking as in agony, lost for the world, not a single one smiling or acknowledging other people. And their rhythm is mechanical, robotic.
In contrast to the children running by, their rhythm is organic, erratic - and that sounds like happy feet to me.
I'm sounding all sentimental - that's not the case, but I have a profound distaste for mindless exercise.