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