distractions

there is no better distraction than the following: people. watching your boss/mother-in-law being eaten by a zombie is sort of fun, albeit frightening. because once the zombies are done with them, you're next. i suggest you run as fast as you can.
on a darker note, watching your best friend/true love being eaten by a zombie is quite upsetting and rather horrific, and it's much harder to run when that is the case.
all the same: bodies, dead or alive (sometimes even other zombies work) are wondeful distractions. cats aren't as good as humans, but normally they suffice. dogs are better than cats but less effective than your grandpa. family members work the best, with hated enemies coming in second. goldfish don't work, no matter how dear they are to you. the zombies'll just shove it in their mouth and continue the chase. you just wasted a perfectly good goldfish.
another pretty good distraction is to give them your arm, but only the really desperate people (or the people whose arm was just ripped off) do that.