Lawl... "They said it couldn't be done, combining zombies and christmas?" I'm pretty sure there were more than a few zombies in Nightmare Before Christmas. Don't make claims that aren't true.
I really think that you should just hold down "z", or another button, to run and it goes off automatically when you let go. Toggling running is rather awkward when you want to run a specific distance or amount of time.
I think there's a bug when you fight with allies. If they kill an opponent before you in a turn when you have something lined up it will sometimes freeze your character...