Mad Max Marathon 2025

In July 2025 the third Mad Max Marathon Running Festival will be held in Broken Hill, NSW after successful events in 2023 and 2024.

Race Director, Brian Haddy, has been co-ordinating a local fun run in his home town of Mount Barker, SA for the past eight years. This ‘Conquer the Summit’ event has grown from 100 to over 500 participants each year and has raised $200,000 for local youth development charities in that time.

In 2022 Brian also co-ordinated the Great Kanku Breakaways Marathon Festival in Coober Pedy and this gave him the idea to organise another outback running festival, this time with a connection to the famous Mad Max movie franchise which has used Broken Hill as a film location over the years.

In 2024, Brian added the Mildura Riverfront Marathon (www.mildurariverfrontmarathon.com.au) to his events and this will be on 8th June (the long weekend) in 2025. The inaugural Horsham Half will join this stable of events on 14th September 2025.

The aim of the Mad Max event is threefold – to attract runners from all over Australia to this unique heritage town; to encourage more local children and adults to get into the running ‘habit’; and to raise funds and awareness of the work of the Maari Ma Health Aboriginal Corporation that provides
quality Primary Health Care services and Community Programs for the Aboriginal communities of far western NSW. Read more about their incredible work here. All entrants are encouraged to add a donation to
their registration fee to support Maari Ma.

The Mad Max Marathon Festival presents a unique opportunity to explore outback Australia and the historic city of Broken Hill and its link to the Mad Max film franchise. All abilities and ages are catered for - from the elite marathon runner to the weekend jogger or walker on a course that is flat, flat, flat. The event starts and finishes at the Broken Hill Racecourse, home to the spacious Gary Radford Pavilion and nearby camping facilities for those seeking a real outback adventure - https://www.brokenhilleventscentre.org.au/camp ) to book your powered or unpowered campsite. There are many other accommodation options in Broken Hill which you can explore at https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/outback-nsw/broken-hill-area/accommodation

The marathon, half-marathon, 10km and 5km events all start with the Broken Hill Racecourse parkrun loop (https://www.parkrun.com.au/brokenhillracecourse/ ). The longer events then involve varying distances on flat dirt tracks alongside Racecourse Road and then a left turn onto the Silver City Highway. The Marathon event involves a second lap of the half-marathon course. The 10km, half-marathon and marathon events all finish with a 2km lap of the racecourse - this is a very different and slightly crazy event.

An iconic medal will be awarded to all 5km, 10km, half marathon and marathon finishers and a very cool event t-shirt is now available to purchase.

New this year is the ability for entrants to form a Team and compete for trophies in the Marathon, Half Marathon and 10km RUN categories (fastest four times count). We have also added a special 10km WALK category to encourage greater involvement in the event.

For Mad Max tragics, feel free to add extra touches to your running or walking outfit and encourage your supporters to do the same!

For those keen to spend the weekend in the region why not run the Broken Hill Racecourse parkrun at 8.00am on the Saturday morning, visit the Mad Max 2 Museum at Silverton (just 20kms from Broken Hill) and have lunch on Saturday at the quirky Silverton Pub. On Saturday or Sunday nights, you can have dinner at the iconic Palace Hotel, where scenes of the legendary Priscilla, Queen of the Desert film were made.

Event partner, Maari Ma Health, is an Aboriginal community controlled health organisation dedicated to improving the health outcomes for communities in the far west region of New South Wales with a special focus on Aboriginal health. They would be very grateful if you could support their work by adding a donation on top of your registration fee.