Ultrarunner and endurance athlete Amelia Badeau spent years showing up to races before realizing she wanted to create them. Through IronMomma Events, she is building themed runs, community experiences and purpose driven events designed for people who want more than another start line and finish line.

By Sara Turney

Amelia Badeau’s family and friends have learned to pay attention when she starts a sentence with four particular words.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if...?”

There is a reasonable chance whatever comes next is going to end up on an event calendar.

That is how Amelia’s mind works. An Oktoberfest run. A community market. A themed race. A 5K paired with hands on self defense training. An idea gets said out loud, Amelia starts wondering whether it could actually work, and eventually people are registering for it.

“A lot of IronMomma Events ideas start as random thoughts that I say out loud and then somehow they end up on a calendar,” she says.

Somewhere between those random thoughts and the finished event is IronMomma Events, the company Amelia created to bring together several parts of her own life that had already been intertwined for years: endurance sports, community, creativity, movement and a desire to connect people.

Amelia had spent years participating in races and being part of the local endurance community before she recognized something about herself.

She did not only love attending events.

She loved creating them.

“I started dreaming up the kinds of events I would want to attend myself,” she says. “Welcoming, memorable, a little different, and not afraid to have fun.”

Eventually, she stopped talking about the ideas and started building them.

You do not have to be the fastest person there

IronMomma Events produces themed fun runs, endurance events, markets, community gatherings and other special experiences. Depending on the event, registration might include a shirt, medal, food, activities, education or whatever else Amelia has worked into that particular concept.

The variety is deliberate.

Amelia does not want IronMomma to become a machine that produces the same event with a different date stamped on it.

“I don’t want to create cookie cutter events,” she says. “Every IronMomma event has its own personality. Sometimes it’s silly, sometimes it’s meaningful, and usually it’s a little bit of both.”

There is another principle that matters even more.

People should feel like they belong there.

“You shouldn’t have to be the fastest runner, the most experienced athlete, or know everyone in the room to participate,” Amelia says.

That idea carries particular weight coming from someone deeply involved in endurance sports. Racing can be intimidating from the outside. Pace, distance, equipment and experience can make a person wonder whether they have earned the right to stand at the starting line.

Amelia wants to lower that barrier.

IronMomma events are designed to give people opportunities to move, laugh, meet someone, support local businesses and organizations, and leave with a good memory.

The finish time is only one part of the day.

If you choose one IronMomma experience, Amelia chooses Running Fearless

Ask Amelia which IronMomma registration she would recommend above all the others and she points to Project Running Fearless.

The concept combines a 5K fun run with hands on self defense training.

For Amelia, that combination represents the larger potential of what an event can be.

“It’s more than a race,” she says. “It has a purpose.”

Project Running Fearless is especially important to her because participants leave with something beyond a medal or race time. Amelia wants them to leave with practical safety and self defense knowledge they can use after the event is over.

That makes Running Fearless one of the clearest examples of the balance she is trying to create through IronMomma.

There can still be fun.

There can still be people laughing together, food, a shirt and all the energy that comes with race morning.

But an experience can also be useful.

It can teach something.

It can create confidence.

It can have a reason for existing beyond adding another 5K to an already crowded calendar.

That is where Amelia wants IronMomma to live.

She is perfectly comfortable making an event a little weird

Not everything needs a serious lesson attached to it.

Sometimes Amelia has an idea because it sounds fun.

She considers that a perfectly acceptable reason to explore it.

“I’m not afraid to make an event a little weird or unexpected,” she says. “If I think something sounds fun and people will enjoy it, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to figure out how to turn it into an event.”

Her themed events tend to get some of the biggest reactions.

“Give me a theme, some ridiculous ideas, a medal, good food, and a group of people ready to have fun, and I’m happy.”

That sentence may be the unofficial IronMomma Events business plan.

Seasonal and one time experiences are part of the calendar, including Oktoberfest inspired runs, holiday events, community markets and other themed races. Shirts, medals, merchandise and activities can be designed specifically around an individual event rather than pulled from the same template every time.

That means people following IronMomma are not simply waiting for the next race date.

They are waiting to see what Amelia thought of next.

The best part happens when people start talking to each other

For someone who spends so much time thinking about event concepts, Amelia’s favorite moment is surprisingly simple.

She likes looking around.

“Watching people connect,” she says. “One of my favorite things is looking around during an event and seeing people laughing or talking who probably never would have met otherwise.”

That is the part she considers special.

She created the reason they were in the same place.

It also explains why collaboration is so central to how Amelia works.

IronMomma events are not intended to exist in isolation from the communities where they happen. Amelia wants local businesses, nonprofits, instructors, vendors, athletes and community members involved.

She would rather build something with other people than try to own every piece of the experience herself.

Festivals and markets feed that instinct because she gets to discover businesses and meet people she may eventually work with.

“One conversation can turn into an entirely new idea,” she says.

For Amelia, that is apparently both an observation and a warning.

Someone could very easily have a casual conversation with her and discover six months later that they are now involved in a themed race.

Then come the 5,000 things nobody sees

Having ideas is not the hard part.

Amelia has learned that lesson quickly.

“There is so much behind the scenes,” she says.

Permits. Insurance. Budgets. Registration. Marketing. Sponsors. Vendors. Logistics. Course planning. Shirts. Medals.

Then, according to Amelia, there are approximately “5,000 tiny details no one sees.”

That is the less glamorous reality behind an event that appears to participants as a finished experience.

Someone had to decide where people park.

Someone had to make sure the course works.

Someone ordered the medals, communicated with vendors, dealt with insurance, figured out registration and discovered that at least one part of the original plan was not going to happen exactly as expected.

IronMomma has required Amelia to learn quickly and accept that creating an event also means becoming comfortable with adjustment.

That has not made her stop creating them.

If anything, the calendar is getting busier.

IronMomma is becoming more than one event

Amelia considers building momentum one of her biggest successes so far.

IronMomma is no longer a single idea she is trying to convince people to believe in. There are multiple events and collaborations in development, and people have begun recognizing the name and asking what is coming next.

“That means a lot to me because this started as an idea and has grown into a real community,” she says.

There is something particularly satisfying about that progression for Amelia.

She says one of the things that makes her proudest is watching an idea that existed only in her head become something other people believe in too.

Someone registers.

A business agrees to collaborate.

A volunteer shows up.

A participant gets excited.

Little by little, the imaginary event becomes a real date populated by real people.

Then Amelia looks around and sees two of those people talking who might never have met otherwise.

That is success too.

IronMomma is only one part of Amelia’s very full calendar

Running an event company would probably be enough extracurricular activity for most people.

Amelia has taken a different approach.

She is an ultrarunner and endurance athlete, the creator of What’s Good East Tennessee?, and Mrs. East Tennessee America 2026. She also has a small craft business.

Most importantly, she says, she is a mom.

Those roles may look unrelated on paper, but there is a common thread running through most of them.

Amelia likes community.

She likes challenges.

She likes connecting people and finding ways to turn the things she cares about into something that can have a positive effect beyond herself.

Endurance sports already taught her something about what movement and community can do.

Now she gets to create the setting where somebody else might discover it.

“If something I create encourages someone to get outside, try something new, meet a new friend, support a local cause, or discover what they’re capable of, that keeps me going,” she says.

The goal is growth, but not growth for its own sake

Amelia wants IronMomma Events to get bigger.

She is also specific about how.

“Growth, but intentional growth.”

She wants to continue developing events throughout Chattanooga and East Tennessee, deepen partnerships with businesses and community organizations, grow Project Running Fearless and keep creating experiences that people have not already seen a hundred times.

There is no shortage of events on a regional calendar.

Amelia understands that simply adding another one is not enough.

IronMomma has to give people a reason to choose it.

Sometimes that reason might be purpose.

Sometimes it might be community.

Sometimes it might be a medal and a wonderfully ridiculous theme.

Ideally, there is room for all three.

There is plenty already on the calendar

The next stretch gives Amelia several opportunities to prove the concept.

The Oktoberfest Lederhosen Loop & Root Bier Run is scheduled for October 3, 2026.

IronMomma RunFest follows November 13 and 14.

Then Project Running Fearless: Chattanooga Edition is scheduled for January 16, 2027, bringing together the 5K and hands on self defense training that Amelia considers so central to the IronMomma mission.

The Not Just a Mom Half Marathon is scheduled for March 20, 2027.

For current registration information and the evolving event calendar, IronMomma directs participants to its website, where Amelia also shares information about partnerships and what the company is developing next.

There will almost certainly be more.

Amelia is actively interested in meeting businesses, nonprofits, vendors, instructors and community members who want to collaborate.

Her favorite ideas, after all, do not always begin with a formal planning meeting.

Sometimes they begin with two people talking.

“Okay... what if we did this?”

Start before you feel ready

Amelia’s advice for someone with an idea of their own is probably predictable by now.

Start.

“Start before you feel completely ready, because you probably never will,” she says.

Planning matters, but Amelia believes there are things a person can only learn by actually doing the work. Ask questions. Find people who know things you do not. Be willing to change the plan.

Then put the idea out there.

It is the same thing she eventually had to do with IronMomma Events.

For years, Amelia participated in races and endurance events. She knew what it felt like to arrive as the athlete, stand at the start and experience something another person had created.

Eventually, she began imagining what she would do differently.

Make it welcoming.

Give it personality.

Bring local people and businesses into it.

Let it be meaningful without making it solemn.

Let it be silly without making it empty.

Give someone who has never considered themselves an athlete a reason to show up anyway.

And, every once in a while, take one of those random “Wouldn’t it be fun if...” thoughts seriously enough to put it on a calendar.

That is how IronMomma Events is growing.

One idea becomes an event.

An event brings people together.

Those people create another idea.

And Amelia, apparently, is going to need a bigger calendar.

Meet IronMomma Events: Running, Community and the Power of Asking “What If?”