Riley Rising won the Mad Dash Adventure Race's Elite Course at Fairfield Hills, on a cool, 60-something degree June 11 morning, finishing the 5.1 mile competition - full of strenuous, and sometimes muddy, obstacles - in a time of 39:49. Lauren King was tops among female finishers, completing the event in 50:07.

The Elite Course participants ran the course, then went through the obstacles during their second and third times around. There were a couple of other options, giving athletes of all ages and levels of ambitiousness an opportunity to test themselves. The Open Course was a 1.9 mile lap which included all obstacles, and the Mini Dash Adventure, for children, featured a shorter run with nine obstacles.

"It was a lot harder. It was definitely a lot harder than last year," said Rising, referring to both the fact the course was lengthened and some obstacles were added.

Among the new obstacles was a makeshift web of ropes between trees that participants had to make their way through.

The course began with a tunnel crawl, continued with the tire obstacle, and hay barriers. Competitors went across logs and had to maintain balance even with firefighters blasting runners with water, then experienced the tar and feather station (crawling through grass clippings that stuck to the soaking wet participants).

After a wall climb, and fitness challenge (which included burpees), participants crawled through the mud pit, then carried rocks up a hill before a long trail run. Next were the suspended ladders, requiring competitors to go monkey bar-style from rung to rung.

After the slip and slide station, runners climbed a dirt mound, went up and over a wall, then jogged back to the tunnel crawl obstacle.

King said her favorite part of the event was the mud pit. "Even though it was kind of gross it was still kind of fun," King said.

The top female finisher's mom, Tracey King, said it was enjoyable to do the Mad Dash along with her daughter.

"Really fun because it had a lot of different elements to it," Tracey King said. "It was challenging. I was surprised."

"I don't think I was mentally prepared for it," Shelby Tolla added. "It's hard because you're going through all of those obstacles to doing burpees, and then they tell you to keep going and you're like 'no,'" Tolla said light-heartedly.