Mad Run in Fort Recovery coming to an end

FORT RECOVERY - After almost a decade and more than $100,000 raised for local charities, officials will hold the final Mad Run at Fort Recovery Ambassador Park on Saturday.

Event coordinator Deb Hemmelgarn said that while this year would be the seventh for the Mad Run, the committee responsible has probably been working on the event for eight or nine years, and the work is intensive.

Up to a month before the event, committee members and other volunteers may spend every weeknight and weekend working on building the course and they can be at the park up to a month later tearing it down again. Even after the obstacles have all been removed, planning each run is a yearlong endeavor.

"Each year the committee designs new obstacles because we want to make each course different than the year before. We wanted to present new obstacles as well, redesigning the current obstacles, that sort of thing. We definitely wanted to keep it fresh, interesting, something new every year for the participants," Hemmelgarn said.

The effort is completely volunteer-led, and many on the committee have other commitments. Hemmelgarn works full-time and has a family. While she has no regrets, it can take a lot to manage one's life beyond the Mad Run. The other commitee members felt the same, and the decision to end the run after this year was unanimous, according to Hemmelgarn.

The Mad Run is the only local event of its kind. Hemmelgarn said a similar obstacle course run is held in Darke County but not to the scale of the Mad Run. Another can be found hours away at Avon Lake in the Cleveland area. The Mad Run drew people from four different states and had more than 1,000 participants at its height.

Community support for the run over the years has been tremendous, from the contributions by local businesses to the goodwill of neighbors of the park housing the course. They wouldn't have been able to pull the Mad Run together in any other part of the country, Hemmelgarn said.

The committee will work on rehoming props used in the course as some of the obstacles took money to build or were built by Fort Recovery High School students for the run and are durable enough to continue being used. Hemmelgarn said that while rumors of having other community residents revive the Mad Run are circulating, no one has approached the committee with substantive plans.

"It's been a great ride, and no doubt some tears will be shed, but members are ready to move on," she said.

People may still register for the final Mad Run online. Using the coupon code Last Mud will knock the price for registration down from $60 to $45. The event is from 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m., with the first two waves at 8 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. reserved for competitive runners. The other waves throughout the day are casual. Participants in the later waves may walk or run the course and are not required to complete every obstacle.

Parents also may bring their kids to play in the Mad Kid, a children's obstacle course, as they participate in the Mad Run. Children won't get wet or muddy as will participants in the Mad Run. That cost is $10.