The Bronte Harbour Classic isn’t a race built by a committee. It was built by people who run — who have run together on the Bronte waterfront for years, who know this community, and who decided it was time Oakville had a race it could call its own.
Here’s who’s putting it together.
Greg Kowalczyk — Co-Race Director
Greg Kowalczyk is the CEO and Co-Founder of TapeGeeks Inc. and GearTOP Inc. — athletic tape and sun protection brands he built with his daughter from the ground up. By training, he’s a mechanical engineer. In practice, he’s the kind of person who treats everything like a system that can be built better.
Greg co-leads the Bronte Runners Club alongside Charles — a community he’s been a part of since long before anyone was thinking about organizing a race. That’s actually where the Bronte Harbour Classic started: on the roads, in the group chat, after years of the club driving to other cities to race, then coming home and asking the same question: Why doesn’t Bronte have its own event?
The event you’re registered for is Greg’s answer to that question.
He also built RunMate Pro — a free iOS GPS running app that tracks training routes, shoe mileage, and weekly volume. A lot of Bronte Runners members use it for their long runs.
Charles J. Sathmary — Co-Race Director
Charles J. Sathmary is a former elite Canadian distance athlete. His competitive résumé is not modest: 13:32 for 5,000m, 27:51 for 10K, 2:13:07 marathon, and a sub-4-minute mile. He has competed at the highest levels of Canadian distance running.
He now runs Oakville Peak Performance, where he coaches runners of all abilities — from first-timers preparing for their first 5K to experienced runners chasing marathon qualifiers. His clinics are structured around four target races per year, giving athletes a focused, periodized approach to training rather than just going out and logging kilometres without direction.
The results his athletes are producing speak for themselves. Clinic participants aren’t just shaving minutes off their personal bests — they’re shaving hours. Runners who came in with no race experience are finishing races they didn’t believe they could finish. Runners who had plateaued for years are breaking through. Charles brings elite-level periodization and race strategy into a format that’s accessible and sustainable for everyday athletes.
He co-leads the Bronte Runners Club alongside Greg — the Wednesday evening runs and weekend waterfront sessions are built around his coaching philosophy: consistent, structured training with real people around you.
Train With Charles
Charles runs performance clinics at Oakville Peak Performance targeting four races a year. His athletes are setting new personal bests at distances from 5K to marathon. If you're serious about improving, this is where to start.
The Bronte Runners Club
Both Greg and Charles co-lead the Bronte Runners Club — one of the most active running communities in the Halton region with nearly 700 members.
The club runs three times a week: Wednesday evenings at 6:00 PM from the Running Room in downtown Oakville, and weekends from the gazebo at Bronte Harbour Marine Park — the same waterfront where the race takes place on June 21st. Weekend distances range from easy 5K recovery runs to 20K long efforts depending on where members are in their training cycle.
There’s no membership fee. No registration form. No minimum pace. You join the Facebook group, find out when the next run is, and show up.
In 2025, Team WIN/Primal Athletics/Bronte Runners raised $27,000 for the Terry Fox Foundation — the largest fundraising group in Oakville that year. That number didn’t come from a corporate matching program. It came from a community of people who show up for each other.
The Bronte Harbour Classic is, in a real sense, this club’s race.
Looking for a Training Partner?
Read our guide on how to train for the BHC with the Bronte Runners Club — including when and where the group meets every week.
Greg Pace — Race Advisor
Greg Pace is the owner of PACE Performance and one of the most experienced race directors in Ontario. He holds a Bachelor of Kinesiology from McMaster University, was a founding President of Triathlon Ontario, and has directed Burlington’s Moon in June Road Race for over 30 consecutive years.
When Greg Kowalczyk and Charles Sathmary decided to build this race, Greg Pace was the person they called. Not because he had time to spare — he doesn’t — but because if you want to build something that lasts, you learn from the people who’ve already done it.
Greg Pace brings decades of operational knowledge: logistics, timing, course certification, volunteer management, race-day safety, and all the things that separate a well-run event from one that falls apart when something unexpected happens. His involvement means the BHC is built with institutional knowledge from day one.
A Shared Vision
Between the three of them, this team covers the full spectrum of what it takes to run a race that people come back to year after year: elite coaching credentials, community building, product and event development, and three decades of race management experience.
The vision behind the Bronte Harbour Classic has always been simple: a professionally run, chip-timed race with a real finish line experience — not just for fast runners, but for anyone in this community who wants to race in their own backyard, on a flat waterfront course, on Father’s Day morning. Read the story of how the race started.
If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time.
If you want to train with the people who built this race, join the Bronte Runners. Our 8-week beginner training plan will get you to the start line ready to finish.
See you at the start line.