02/06/2026
Dead Cow Gully 2026
Race review from our Race Director, John Hughes.
For those that don’t know, Dead Cow Gully is the ‘spiritual father’ race to ours. Our hope when creating our race was to embrace and try to emulate the incredible atmosphere that Tim has created with his race, on a smaller, less remote and hopefully more accessible level. I’ve said before that our race would not exist at all if it was not for the backyards that have come before, including Sydney’s (then Brick’s), Red’s, and GV (Shepparton), but especially Dead Cow Gully.
With so many of our community participating in this year’s event, it was always going to hit differently, on a more personal level. Our 1st, 2nd and 3rd placegetters from our 2025 event, and our inaugural winner were all there, and were all in great shape going in. As we now know, Chris equalled his previous DCG PB, Joshy extended his record out another 16 yards (to 48 in only his second backyard!), and Jayden and Sam showed they can take it to the big boys on one of the biggest stages, with one of the most heartbreaking endings to a race I’ve ever witnessed. There was no secret that Jayden and Sam were working to guarantee their spot on the Australian Satellite Champs team to compete on the global stage at Reds in October, and for them to get so close, but still so agonisingly far was brutal. We know that they are capable of making the team, and now the whole country does too. Word on the street now is that the lads will be targeting either Reds or Clint Eastwood and will be working together. We’re behind you all the way lads. Recover well, heal up and crush the next one.
From a more overall perspective, it was wonderful to see so many of our community at the race perform so well. We love what the GCBU community has become, and we’ll continue to try to serve you as best we can in the years to come. PB’s across the board were wonderful to witness and be a part of, from both of the Gunders ladies, to Emily Evans setting a new age group record, Glen Frohloff hitting the 100 mile mark, to name a few. Congratulations to each and every one of you!
Regarding our race, we’re approaching the end of our Early Bird pricing, which we think is some of the most reasonable pricing you’ll get in a backyard, especially in such a convenient and ‘purpose-built’ facility. We’re already sitting at around 50 registrations, but we’d love to see more of you take advantage of the cheaper pricing. This has never been a money-making venture for us. We are 100% not for profit, our race purely began as a means for me to give back to the Toowoomba Running Community that dug me out of a deep personal mental hole. To have 199 starters last year completely blew me away, so we’ve extended out to 200 general entries, and our 7SR friends have asked for 60 places again this year. Let’s see if we can approach filling these spaces this year!
