January Review

Already going again with monthly reports for 2026. I was quite surprised to see I started these way back in January 2014. I didn't go back and read the first one yet, but it didn't have the same structure as the current version.

A standard month of running to kick off the year, with no races coming up for a while and a few days running in 40 degrees at work. My only purchase for the month was experimenting with a batch of Feetures socks for daily running and races, since they look a bit more heavy duty than Steigen and were discounted for the large size, from a few uses they've been very good.

My parkrun times have been disappointing with every time stuck at 18 minutes or slower, before finally getting a 17:40 to finish the month. I've already been to four new events for the year with St Lucia and Kedron in Brisbane, then Belvedere and The Phar Lap Track back in Melbourne. I'm trying to get my volunteer count up but it feels like it takes forever, and one got cancelled due to a total fire ban.

My money report will be very quiet this year, as I've had to sell off a large chunk of shares for house purposes. Like usual the Life 360 shares went up 30% within days of me selling, but thankfully they almost dropped all the way back down again soon after. Overall I'm pretty happy with what I've sold and haven't had any significant short term regrets otherwise. I still plan to keep some money in shares rather than putting everything into an offset account, and review that it six months or so. Towards the end of the year I'll have to worry about a bit of capital gains tax but hopefully it's not too significant after applying capital losses and 50% discount.

I won't know all of my house costs until next month, but have spent close to $5000 again this month on most of the major appliances and furniture. Just a few more items still to go:

• Clothes dryer - maybe
• Couch - additional smaller pieces
• Gym equipment - probably just a leg bench for now
• TV - once I get better measurements for the wall cavity - either 65 or 75

On to sports and I tried my best to catch up on NFL highlights but was a couple of weeks behind by the time the playoffs started, so just watched those instead. There was some good games during the playoff rounds and best of all New England and Seattle both made the superbowl again.

The to do list is mostly taking a back seat to house stuff right now.

• Blogs
• 2025 Running Review
• Holidays
• No plans yet for 2026
• Have to review my money position after February
• House
• In a rush to get all my money ready, but everything else was calm
• Settlement is still on track for February 6
• Electricity and gas scheduled for February 6
• Water should not have to do anything for February 6
• NBN installation scheduled for February 9
• Couch, fridge, and washing machine all scheduled for February 9 too
• Desk and dining table came in smaller boxes from Ikea, so just have to assemble
• Running
• No changes and linked with holiday plans
• KL Marathon in October might be a good alternative to Melbourne Marathon

Back into a normal schedule at work, but without much new stuff in the pipeline. Nothing happening with promotions or changing projects still.

That's it for this month.

• Books
• None
• Movies
• 28 Years Later
• Disappointed with how slow it was, only two main plot points
• The kid going off on his own and surviving was unrealistic
• 4 out of 10
• Music
• None
• TV
• 007 Road To A Million season 2
• An improvement on season 1, but still some challenges were far too easy
• 6 out of 10
• Black Mirror season 6
• Episode 1 - Joan Is Awful
• A good idea at the start, then just a bit confusing and weird
• 3 out of 10
• Episode 2 - Loch Henry
• My favourite of the first four
• Less technology focused but had a good story and suitable conclusion
• 8 out of 10
• Episode 3 - Beyond The Sea
• A very long episode and so predictable which direction it was heading
• 3 out of 10
• Episode 4 - Mazey Day
• A strange episode and not really sure of the purpose
• 4 out of 10
• Hard Knocks 2025 in-season
• A lot better than the preseason which I only watched one episode of so far
• Just a shame the division was decided before the show even started
• Was better than watching weekly highlights on YouTube for these four teams
• 7 out of 10
• Video Games
• Xbox One
• Call Of Duty - Black Ops 6
• Bought for $20
• Thankfully the installation had no problems again
• Still in progress but not that interesting so far
• Adding a single player upgrade system is a little strange
• Call Of Duty - Vanguard
• A good story but sometimes far too long between action
• Too much focus on individual character flashbacks though, but the Australian characters were ok
• 7 out of 10
• Call Of Duty - Modern Warfare 3
• Bought for $10
• Didn't realise I was missing this one, it didn't get good reviews
• Have not started as Black Ops 6 is still in progress

2025 Running Review

A very similar year to 2024 with no new records but not far off my best.

The annual total was down a little due to holidays:

• 2025 - 4931 kilometres and 376 hours
• 2024 - 5147 kilometres and 392 hours
• 2023 - 5050 kilometres and 381 hours
• 2022 - 5119 kilometres and 390 hours
• 2021 - 5128 kilometres and 392 hours

I had eleven races for the year which is a pretty good number. My 10km results were all very similar after a slow start to the year, while the 2XU course may have been a little short. On the other hand my half marathon times were a little bit disappointing, but I had some hamstring soreness going into Melbourne Marathon and various other left leg issues have been continuing ever since.

• January - Rosebud Australia Day Run 10km
• 37:08
• February - Carman's Fun Run 10km
• 37:06
• April - Run For The Kids 14.4km
• 54:02
• April - Ballarat Marathon 10km
• 36:29
• May - Sydney 10
• 36:31
• June - Brisbane Marathon 10km
• 36:26
• July - Gold Coast Marathon 21km
• 1:19:19
• September - Run Prix 10km
• 36:24
• October - Melbourne Marathon 21km
• 1:19:50
• November - Auckland Marathon 21km
• 1:22:09
• November - 2XU Wellness Run 10km
• 35:55

I went to 53 parkruns for the year which was an equal best, only missing one due to Gold Coast half marathon like usual.

• 53 events - 51 in 2024
• 6 new events - 6 in 2024
• April
• Aintree Reserve
• May
• Wentworth Common (Sydney)
• New Farm (Brisbane)
• July
• Meijo Koen (Nagoya)
• Shibamata Koen Kadan (Tokyo)
• November
• Orakei Bay (Auckland)

The goals will be very similar for a third year in a row, but I'm unsure about the interstate and international events so far.

• 2025
• 5km 17:00 - 17:32
• 10km 35:00 - 35:55
• 21km 1:17:00 - 1:19:19
• 4500 to 5000 kilometres - 4931
• Parkrun
• 10 new events - 6
• Races
• 3 new events - 3
• 3 interstate events - 3
• 1 international event - 1
• 2026
• 5km 17:00
• 10km 35:00
• 21km 1:17:00
• 4500 to 5000 kilometres
• Parkrun
• 10 new events
• Races
• 2 new events
• 3 interstate events
• 1 international event

Brisbane 2025-2026

December 31

January 01

January 02

January 03

December Review

This is the last monthly review for 2025, hopefully heading towards a better 2026. Some yearly updates will come later.

Nothing to mention for miscellaneous other than a very average summer so far, at most only a few days above 30 degrees.

Another long list of running updates, which should be more quiet for the next few months.

• Injuries
• I've had a few weeks of pain shooting down my left leg, probably related to lower back issues
• Some days the pain has been so bad I couldn't even run
• Races
• Gold Coast Marathon 21km - finally registered after a stressful hour waiting in queue with HTTP 500 server errors
• Parkrun
• Attended 53 events for the year - only missed one due to Gold Coast half marathon
• KM Reedy Reserve 18:15 - longer backup course
• Berwick Waters 22:30 - sharp hip and leg pain, started off at 7:00/km
• Dorset 20:45 - even worse leg pain again
• Lilydale Lake 17:35 - just missed a course PB for Christmas
• Darebin parkrun 17:55
• More shoe purchases which are definitely surplus now - particularly race shoes
• Nike South Wharf 40% off
• Alphafly 3 premium
• Vomero plus
• Nike Bundoora 40% off
• Almost no stock left after Boxing Day
• Vomero plus
• Rebel Sport
• Puma Deviate Nitro 3 $125 - 50% and a $100 gift card from work

Another bad month for shares to finish the year with technology shares going down every day. The timing is not great as I needed to sell some before February so can't wait around for a rebound - which already started shortly after I began selling of course.

Heaps of other expenses again, which never seems to end at the moment:

• Car registration $900
• Conveyancer $600
• Gold Coast flight $400
• Gold Coast hotel $1300
• Gold Coast race $200
• House appliances $750 approximately
• House deposit $200,000 approximately

Only a few items in sports, with the Gridiron Victoria final and Zatopek athletics 3km and 10km races. I'm up to week 10 of NFL highlights, so still several weekly behind with the playoffs about to start.

The to do list is quiet but important this month.

• Holiday
• Need to decide between Europe, Japan, USA, or none for winter
• House
• Offer got accepted around mid December
• Lots of small tasks since, particularly related to home loan surprisingly
• Lots of small tasks still to go, most closer to settlement
• Running
• Gold Coast weekend booked and paid for
• Not much else found without an expensive hotel and flight
• The next paid race is not until Run For The Kid on March 29

Have been busy to finish the year at work but think it will be much quieter in January. Returned to doing the daily Advent Of Code challenges which was thankfully only 12 days instead of 25 this time.

That's it for this month.

• Books
• None
• Movies
• None
• Music
• None
• TV Shows
• Celebrity Race Across The World Season 3
• Central America was a little different this time
• Didn't know any of the celebrities, and wasn't very eventful
• 6 out of 10
• Video Games
• Xbox One
• Call Of Duty - Black Ops 6
• Purchased for $20
• Call Of Duty - Modern Warfare 2
• Single player campaign was a bit better than previous ones
• Replay on veteran had some frustrating levels
• Not many fun achievements
• 6 out of 10
• Call Of Duty - Vanguard
• Just started, so much story time and flashbacks in between the action

Brisbane 2025-2026, January 03

Another 6am start to get a train to Eagle Junction then a short 1.5 kilometre run to the Kedron parkrun starting area. I had enough time for some extra kilometres beforehand, where it wasn't quite as hot but still quite humid.

After a Thursday parkrun and a lot of walking since I wasn't sure how I'd go, but my legs felt quite good. From the start a group of four fast runners took off, then another group of three so I was in eighth. My splits were alright around 3:40 or better and I slowly moved up into fifth place, but way behind the first four. At the end I finally pushed a bit harder to get down to 3:30 and finished in around 18 minutes. The course was quite good and simple, with a pedestrian path next to the bike path the whole way, only it was all concrete.

I did a few more kilometres back to the train station and while waiting 10 minutes for the next service to arrive. Back at the hotel I went straight to the breakfast again before it got too busy, then back to my room to pack up. I wasn't in a big rush so had nearly an hour to get ready and walk down to the train station again.  The train was easy and much better than the Melbourne side of the public transport. The airport and flight also went well, and the whole travel time was about the usual 6 hours.

16,600 steps with 11.8 kilometres running

Brisbane 2025-2026, January 02

As usually happens I had a loud fridge powering up about once an hour in the hotel room, and was also a bit uncomfortable due to dealing with a sore right shoulder and upper back. I still got up for an early breakfast just after 7am and it was much more empty, although with the same stuff available.

At about 8am I took off for a morning run, but had a long walk to get down towards the botanical gardens. Finally the new bridge across the river was open, but parts of the river boardwalk just nearby remain closed for more years. Across the river I headed north east to start but had to turn around at an inlet after about 2 kilometres. I continued back the other way along most of the South Bank parkrun course, before turning around and finishing through the botanical gardens.

After walking back to the hotel and getting ready I set out for the morning. It was a more mild day of only about 25 degrees, and almost no rain. I just walked back towards the city mall area again, which is a bit of a long and boring walk from the hotel past central station every day. Since I had a bit of time I stopped in for a haircut which took a little longer than I expected, then got some snacks for lunch. I had a look around some other stores in the city as there was more open today, but didn't find anything to buy. Eventually I made it back to the hotel for a late lunch and to watch the next episode of Match Of The Day while resting for a while.

I didn't have much planned for the afternoon and didn't feel like an hour trip each way to DFO. I had to spend a bit of time in several mobile apps trying to get a $10,000 BPAY payment reversed between a bank and share investment platform. I ended up just going around in circles with my investigations, then still had a couple of hours left in the day. I didn't feel like doing much more walking with another early start and parkrun coming up. I just went out for a short afternoon walk then picked up a burrito again on the way back for dinner. For the evening I just watched some TV shows and Twitch, then the BBL to get enough rest before another early start for parkrun.

20,900 steps with 13.0 kilometres running

Brisbane 2025-2026, January 01

I started the year with a 6am start to get a train for 7am parkrun. The route was 15 minute train to Boggo Road then a 1.5 kilometre run across the river to St Lucia parkrun. This was my first attempt at loading a course into my Garmin watch to help navigating from the train station to parkrun. The route itself worked alright except the map had so many other lines and markings on it with similar colours. I ran a bit extra for a 4 kilometre warmup and was sweating before the start.

I took off from the start in about 5th place, dealing with some slight hills on a gravel course, with a bit of mud from previous rain. By the 1.5 kilometre turnaround I was into second place and then took the lead, but had someone still right behind me. I lost the lead at both of the next turnarounds but got back ahead soon afterwards each time. I was sure the other person was going to pull away for the finish but I managed to do that instead. I used the watch route in reverse to get back to the train station and had to wait less than 10 minutes.

After walking back to the hotel I got changed and went down for the free breakfast. The range was quite similar to other Holiday Inn Express hotels, the highlight was some good berry yoghurt.

Getting packed for the day I took a bus to Woolloongabba bus station for 10am, with an impressive bus network on some of it's own dedicated roads. Probably because they have less of a train network they have put more effort into having efficient bus trips.

I arrived at 1 Up Arcade just after the opening but there was already quite a few people inside. The entry price was $30 for unlimited play all day, but was closing earlier at 4pm due to the public holiday. There was a good range of games, including beat them up, fighting, guns, and racing. A small negative was how many Street Fighter games they had, which nobody seemed to be interested in.

My first stop was to try out a strange Quake arcade machine. It turned out to be just the single player game but with a track ball for aiming. The button to fire kept getting stuck also, so I only played the first level as it was not easy to move and shoot at the same time. Next I moved on to The Simpsons which I've played before, but some of the levels didn't seem familiar so maybe it was a different version. There was a kid that kept walking around waiting for me to finish playing which was a bit annoying.

I would have gone to the 6 player X-Men next but it was broken, instead I went with Double Dragon 2 and NBA Jam tournament edition, although most of the codes for secret players weren't working on this version. I also had a quick try of Galaga, and Sega Rally, and played through all of Captain America And The Avengers. My final game was Mega Man The Power Battle, which was like a weird boss fight only version of Mega Man, but the characters only had basic weapons.

The combination of sitting and standing and using the controllers had made my arm and neck quite sore after a few hours, by the time I was ready to leave. Some of the cabinets had seats nearby, or you could grab them from elsewhere, but others were a bit high for seating. I spent a bit under four hours there and played most of the games I was interested in, but easily could have stayed for longer.

I took a similar bus back into the city which comes out underneath the mall and shopping centre, which was convenient. I got a quick energy drink from Chemist Warehouse since I hadn't had anything since breakfast, and had a walk around the mall. I stopped in at the EB Games and Zing store which had some interesting merchandise, but probably was all too big for my backpack.

I stopped in at a couple of Woolworths and an IGA on the way back to the hotel, but didn't find much different, usually they have some different flavoured milk at least. Watched some TV shows and Twitch while having a combination of lunch and dinner, and made some basic plans for tomorrow.

20,200 steps with 11.70 kilometres running

Brisbane 2025-2026, December 31

In the morning I had time for a quick 10 kilometre run then left for the train at 9:15am, then on a bus at 10am and arrived at the airport by 10:40am. The terminal was very empty so I got through security very quickly. Before departure there was time for a small lunch, which was some average chips from Schnitz. I also got a snack from Daniel's Donuts and a drink from the vending machine, then had less than 30 minutes to wait for boarding.

We got held up 15 minutes on the runway as often happens, which meant we arrived at Brisbane a bit late also. The trains to the city were only going every 30 minutes on a holiday schedule, but the next one was only 10 minutes away so could have been worse. Getting off at Central station and walking to the hotel was done by about 2:30pm local time, or 3:30pm Melbourne time.

Before leaving the hotel I quickly got the latest episode of Match Of The Day which only took one minute. The closest Woolworths Metro was a bit of a walk as I was just outside the city centre, and when I got there I realised I forgot to check if there was a fridge in the room, but luckily there was. The supermarket was quite small so had limited options, and no good milk drinks.

There wasn't many fast food options around this part of the city, the best was a burrito place that I think I've been to before. A small with the city in general is the "central" station is still a good walk to reach the actual CBD area where most of the food and retail is. It's a bit different to Melbourne where's there a bit of everything all the way between Flinders Street and Melbourne Central for example, and heaps of trams the whole way along too. I think it will be a better when the new rain line adds an extra station, but that's not expected until 2029 now.

While waiting for the burrito I found a Japanese supermarket while had some USA Welch sodas. I tried the Strawberry Cherry which I hadn't had before, but didn't realise it was zero sugar which often has taste at all, but this one was alright. The burrito was good except for having a bit too much rice and not enough beans, but the chips were not very good.

I watched Match Of The Day while having dinner, and found my legs were a bit tired from standing and walking for more than usual. I tried the nightly BBL game on TV afterwards, but the first team got a low score so it wasn't very close.

16,400 steps with 10.5 kilometres running

November Review

This is the November review, almost another year over.

A long list of running notes this month:

• Orakei Bay parkrun
• A new location the day before Auckland half marathon
• Auckland half marathon
• Covered in the Auckland 2025 report
• Aurora parkrun 18:15
• Good on a slow course with wind and rain, and the week after a half marathon
• Melbourne half marathon
• The ballot was open with another increase to $190
• I didn't register and will look at other options, depending on my winter holidays plans
• Aurora parkrun 17:45
• A much better time than the previous week, but working hard on a slow course
• Berwick Waters 17:30
• My best time for the year
• 2XU Wellness Run 10km
• Happy to finish under 36 minutes for only the second time
• Could have run a bit faster in the last kilometre
• Purchases
• Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 3 in Auckland - only $110 but was size 14 rather than 13
• Nike Vaporfly 4 - discounted to $175 and immediately felt much better than the Vaporfly 3
• Adidas Adios Pro 4 - $175
• Nike Vomero Plus - $200 but had a work gift card so effectively free

The bad month for shares finally turned up, in particular technology shares were down 15% in three weeks. A lot of end of year expenses are still coming through with even more next month:

• Air conditioner replacement - $3500
• Car insurance - $1100
• Parramatta half marathon trip - $750
• RACV - $150
• Shoes - $300
• Tax return - $1300

Nothing much happening for sports and I'm still weeks behind in NFL highlights. I missed the whole regular season of Gridiron Victoria due to lack of information online, I can't even find out where the final is being played yet.

The to do list has a bit more activity this month:

• Holidays
• Auckland report
• Parramatta weekend booked for June with a half marathon
• House
• Attended a few houses for private sale - very expensive
• New air conditioner installed before summer arrived
• Running
• Booked Run For The Kids 14km - end March
• Booked Ballarat 10km - end April
• Booked Parramatta 21km - mid June

I've been busy at work still towards the end of the year again. For December I'm planning to do the Advent Of Code again, since it's now only 12 days instead of 25.

That's it for this month:

• Books
• None
• Movies
• None
• Music
• None
• TV Shows
• None - many in progress again
• Video Games
• Nintendo Switch 2
• Donkey Kong Bananza bought - don't own the console yet
• Steam
• Command And Conquer ultimate collection bought for $10
• Xbox One
• Call Of Duty - Black Ops Cold War
• Finished the game on regular - the campaign was much too short
• 4 out of 10
• Call Of Duty - Modern Warfare 2
• 65 GB + 130 GB installations - but at least it worked on the first attempt

Auckland 2025

October 31

November 01

November 02

November 03

November 04

November 05