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