Bowen parkrun

12/06/2026

It's Parkrun Day tomorrow! 😁

And let's be honest Parkrun makes us all as happy as what Barrie is showing us in this photo!

We do need someone for Finish Tokens, if anyone is available to do so, maybe one of our first finishers who are happy to hang around. Let me know if you can help please.

See you all tomorrow for a 7am start.

Kayley
RD - 13th June

05/06/2026

🏃‍♂️ Bowen parkrun #481 🏃‍♀️

​What a fantastic morning down at Bowen Parkrun. A massive congratulations to the 45 legends who laced up and smashed through the finish line this week.

​🌟 Milestone Alert! 🌟
​A massive round of applause for Jayden, who clocked up an incredible 350th parkrun! Fantastic work, Jayden!

​🔥 Personal Bests 🔥
​We also had some absolute flyers out there today who pushed hard and locked in a brand new Personal Best (PB). Brilliant effort, team! Let's hear it for:

​Ryan 🎉
​Jason 🎉
​Callum 🎉
​Jaymee 🎉
​Denise 🎉
​Adam 🎉

​As always, a huge thank you to our incredible high-vis heroes—our volunteers—who make magic happen every single Saturday morning.

​Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone, and we’ll see you next week to do it all over again!

​

05/06/2026

Bowen Parkrun #481

We are looking forward to another cool morning for parkrun tomorrow. Perfect PB weather. We will have a number of runners joining us on their final run before the Mackay Marina Run on Sunday.

First timer brief will commence at 6:50am.

See you all dressed in Maroon for QLD Day!

See you tomorrow.

Robert H
RD.

30/05/2026

30/05/2026

Bowen parkrun #480 – 10 Years Young!

This morning we celebrated 10 years of Bowen parkrun, proving that getting out of bed before 7am on a Saturday can, in fact, become a long-term habit.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, including returning faces (Barrie and Perry), first-timers, visitors, walkers, runners, volunteers, coffee drinkers, and those who only discovered at kilometre 4.5 that the hill is somehow steeper the second time around.

Special thanks to our founding Event Director, Leanne Paul, who set us up for a decade of fun. It was wonderful to have her back where it all started as part of our Bowen parkrun family.

A birthday event must have inspired some extra speed! Congratulations to our PB achievers: Suzanne Smith-Wildey (52:32), Richie Wright (38:15), Jane Carter (33:58), Jason Craig (31:07), Elma Lyons (30:42), Julie Kupke (28:58), Taru Teikari (28:03), Landon Craig (24:04), Luke Styles (22:57), Bill Wallace (21:49), Max Galbraith (21:08), Mitchell Thompson (20:58), and Alexis Howell (20:05). Well done all! Whether it was a few seconds or a few minutes, every PB represents determination, persistence and a little bit of parkrun magic.

We are also incredibly grateful to our volunteer team: Aya Taniguchi (Timekeeper), Kayley Green (Barcode Scanning), Catherine Dwyer (Finish Tokens), Doug Connors (Tail Walker), Patrick Dalton (Event Day Course Check), Michael Deckert (First Timers Welcome), Katie Harris (Birthday Cake) and Mick Reinke (Run Director). Bowen parkrun only happens because volunteers step forward each week, and your contribution is appreciated by everyone who crosses the finish line.

Ten years on, thousands of finishers, litres of coffee, countless lost jumpers, and more Saturday morning conversations than anyone could count, Bowen parkrun continues to be one of the friendliest ways to start a weekend.

Today’s event saw 65 finishers, including 8 first-timers experiencing Bowen parkrun for the first time and those 13 shiny new PBs. At the pointy end of the field, Shay Jones crossed the line first in 19:04, while Alexis Howell was first female home in a brilliant PB performance of 20:05.

Whether you ran a PB or simply ran out of puff, thank you for being part of the story.

Here’s to the next 10 years of 5km, friendship, community spirit, and convincing ourselves every Friday night that an early Saturday alarm is a great idea. 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️☕🎂

Mick Reinke
10th birthday RD

27/05/2026

Ten years ago, Leanne Paul looked at our beautiful patch of coastline at The Pocket and thought:

“You know what this place needs?
More lycra and an early alarm on Saturdays.”

And so Bowen parkrun was born.

This week we celebrate an incredible 10 years of community, friendship, fitness, volunteering, coffee and questionable decisions made before sunrise.

We are thrilled to welcome back Leanne Paul, our founding Event Director, who:
- marked out the original course
- gained approval from parkrun Australia
- and launched what has become one of Bowen’s favourite weekly traditions.

Since that very first event, Bowen parkrun has achieved some amazing milestones:

🏃 480 events
👟 18,870 finishes
👏 323 volunteers
🔥 2,249 PBs

…which roughly translates to:

* thousands of litres of sweat,
* hundreds of lost toenails,
* and at least 47 conversations beginning with
“I’ll just take it easy today…”

Whether you’ve run 1 parkrun or all 480, volunteered, walked, jogged, spectated or simply come for the post-run coffee — thank you for helping create such an amazing community.

Join us this Saturday as we celebrate 10 years of Bowen parkrun magic.

Note: cake may improve your PB by up to 3%. (No guarantees.) 🎂

22/05/2026

Hi all Bowen parkrunners & parkwalkers, What a gorgeous day we had today for event 480, with 33 participants enjoying our beautiful course. A big welcome to all of our visitors today, they all said that they loved our parkrun. A huge thankyou to our volunteers today Jenna Mathew, Zen Wildey, Cindy Tonks, Kyle Fleer, Darcy Dalton, Doug Connors & Rhondda Deckert.
Congratulations today for P.B’s to Rhys Williams, Bryce Dalton & Taru Teikari. The stand out today was Rhys Williams, visiting from Rockhampton setting a new male course record,with a time of
16.36. A fantastic run pipping Steve Buchanan’s time by 3 sec’s.
We are looking forward to next week’s event, with our 10th anniversary of parkrun in Bowen. Hope to see a big turnout, just hoping that the cake will be big enough to share with everyone.
It would be fantastic to see some of our original parkrunners, come back for this special day. Will sign off for now, hope everyone has a great week, and we will see you all next Saturday morning at Barker Park at 0645 for a 0700 start.
All the best - Michael Deckert- run director.

21/05/2026

Hi all Bowen parkrunners & parkwalkers, All is looking good for event 480 this Saturday, great news is that we have a full roster. The weather should be perfect, and we should have a coffee van.
Don’t forget about next Saturday the 30th of May, we are having our 10th Anniversary of parkrun in Bowen. We would love to see a huge turnout for this special occasion, so if you haven’t been to parkrun for a while, it would be fantastic to see you back for the 10th year event. We will sign off for now, see you all at Barker Park on Saturday morning at 0645 for a 0700 start.
All the best- Michael Deckert - run director.

16/05/2026

At Bowen Parkrun we love welcoming new little parksleepers.

15/05/2026

Parkrun number 479
Congratulations to Michael for reaching his 200th volunteer. Michael does so much to help keep our parkrun going and the course looking great. We really appreciate it.
The weather was lovely and cool this morning so stay tuned for the PBs to roll in. Thank you to our visitors for joining us today. We hope to see back soon.
Have a great week.
Therese