Technically, night of the living dead had a running zombie, though Bill Heinzman's graveyard zombiecould probably be better descibed as a "stumbling jogging zombie". But I have to disagree with people who say that fast zombies are the more scary type anyway....
the whole point of the romero type zombie is that they operate on the "Terminator Principle" .. they just wont stop coming... ever. they have no desires, emotions or motivation other than to feed.And what starts with one, becomes tens, then hundreRAB and eventually thousanRAB. The psychological undertones of this are what make them true Horror. Basically, any movie with quick zombies is just an action flick with lots of gore:
Case in point, the last remake of Day of the Dead. Here you have the ultimate in fast undead. They run, jump dozens of feet, hell, they even walk on the ceiling... they're Uberzombies... but that film still sucked undead dick.
George may have lost his touch now, but in his day, he knew what Horror was...period