I set my watch alarm for an early 6:30am start since the parkrun state wide starts at 7:00am instead of the usual 8:00am in most other locations.
For once I had a quiet hotel fridge that didn't need a loud power cycle every half hour. I also managed to turn off the split system heating so it wasn't running all night, despite never having instructions how to operate these mysterious devices in any hotel room ever. I thought it was still running because I kept hearing a rumbling that sounded like the heating, but it was actually the faint vibration from the nearby elevators going up and down.
I got up on time at 6:30am and had a short 1.5 kilometre jog across the bridge to South Bank in time for parkrun. There was quite a big crowd of nearly 600 people, and not a particularly wide course in some parts either. Lots of other runners, cyclists and scooter riders were out early too, before it got too hot I suppose - although the daily maximum was only about 25 it was already quite humid.
I started up near the front then found a good gap without people getting in the way, and not having to race anyone. I counted about 30 people in front at the turn around inside the Botanical Gardens, then we headed back to the start and west along the river - I liked this section of the course better.
I didn't change position much after the start, except one guy still had to sprint past me at the end for no reason to finish about 30th. The time of about 21:30 which was a bit quicker than I planned, but not too bad. I also got the add the "south" event to my parkrun compass achievement, so just need a "north" now. I ran back to hotel for some breakfast and to rest for a bit.
The expo in the Botanical Gardens was open so I walked across to pick up my race bib and anniversary t-shirt which looked ok - sometimes the free shirts aren't worth wearing. I dropped off those items back at the hotel then continued into the city centre. I found out again it takes forever to cross intersections since all directions walk at once, so if you just miss out it's a very long wait. I got some fresh food for lunch and then back to the hotel to eat and rest some more, discovered a pink marshmallow flavoured milk this time.
I walked around the city centre again after lunch but didn't find anything interesting to do, so went back to the hotel to go to the swimming pool for a while, it was nearly empty. It was soon time for dinner already so took a quick trip to the local KFC for the classic large chips and mountain dew freeze combo. My legs were still feeling a bit tired from the previous two days but I was hoping they'd be back to normal by the morning.
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