Shepparton 2016

Just two weeks after the last one, it was already time for another big weekend drive, although this one quite a bit shorter, to Shepparton. After a morning park run at Lillydale (not Lilydale) Lake, getting home and packing it was time to leave at 10:30am.

Unlike the trip to Adelaide the speed limit is 110 km/h most of the way - probably close to the limit of what my car is capable of. It wasn't a very exciting drive as there was no small towns to go through on the way and not much change in scenery. Only had to make one stop for fuel and a driver swap with about 45 kilometres left to go.

Finally in Shepparton, we found a pizza place for lunch at about 1:00pm, the four cheese pizza wasn't great - should have ordered the calzone instead. While waiting for the pizza to cook there was time for a quick look around Maude Mall:

• Famous Telstra lookout tower landmark
• Kids petting zoo
• Another regional town that has the NBN already too!

There was also just enough time to pick up the race bibs at Victoria Park Lake before they closed for the day, saving a bit of time tomorrow.

The finish line, a day early.

Back in the car to drive down to Shepparton Market, it wasn't really a market but they had lots of cheap fruit, then back to the city centre for a bit more exploring:

• Just about every shop in the town was bakery, kebabs or pizza
• Monash Park 'moooving art' exhibition - basically the same cow with a different paint job

Look out. Here comes the Spider-Cow.

The hotel check-in time had passed, the room was alright for an overnight but no Foxtel again. Back in the car for more driving to end the afternoon:

• The city visitor information centre had magnets for sale!
• A circuit around Victoria Park Lake to see what the race route looks like

Magnet.

The final stop was Fun City which is like an indoor amusement centre, they had:

• 9 hole glow in the dark mini golf
• Arcade machines
• Electic go-karts
• Laser tag

None of it looked that interesting so just got some food and drink for dinner and went back to the hotel instead. I tried to play some video files from my USB drive (came prepared) on the TV but it would only work with old AVI files, so we just had to watch AFL instead.

The next morning I woke up at about 2:00am due to being freezing cold, since the sofa bed came with only one thin sheet and blanket, and hard pillows as a bonus. I gut up to put on pants and a jumper, but that didn't help much either. After managing to get the split system heater turned on in the dark (need to point the remote at exactly the right spot) I found the heat didn't really reach across the room and had to give up - like a bad episode of Survivor.

After finally escaping the night it was time for the morning race. Jason started 30 minutes earlier than me, so he walked up to the start while I did check-out and drove up and found a good parking spot.

Soon the 10km event was ready to go, surprising only about 200 people or so at a rough guess, I thought it was more like 400 in the result from last year. I set off at 5:00/km pace which was a bit painful in my right hamstring still, but just acceptable with causing further damage (maybe).

After going around the lake and caravan park it became single file across some bridges, since lots of people were coming the other way too. I got stuck behind some slow people but probably didn't cost more than 30 seconds before I was able to overtake. Some bug flew into my eye after about three kilometres but didn't cause too much irritation, that probably comes in third on the bad things that happen during a race list:

• Toilet break
• Serious injury
• Black Bugs
• Going the wrong way
• Missing the drink station

I overtook a couple of people before the half-way turn around and counted 32 coming back the other way, I only passed one of them the whole way back. I crossed the finish line just before being overtaken (not lapped exactly) by the female winner of the half-marathon event, which would have been embarrassing. The official result was 32nd place exactly as I had counted, in 49:17 - 30 seconds behind and 2 minutes ahead of the next person, beating my life time goal of 50 minutes.

The finish line again.

The course was not bad running along the Goulburn River, but not personally enjoyable due to the moderate pain I was in. I had time for a short warm down before Jason finished as well, then it was back on the road by about 10:15am. One last stop at Seymour for an early lunch and then home by about 12:30pm, about 200 kilometres each way.

Adelaide 2016

August 13, 2016
August 14, 2016
August 15, 2016

Adelaide 2016, August 15 (Road Rules)

It was an even earlier start on Monday morning out of Adelaide, hoping to avoid the peak hour in Melbourne in the evening, and working against the time zone difference this time. After maxing out the fuel tank we were off at about 6:45am, to Tailem Bend at 7:45am and Keith at 9:00am for the first driver change - without much sign of back pain so far.

Shortly before the border the speed limit goes down to 100km/h which seems unnecessary. At 11:00am (VIC time) in Nhill we swapped drivers over again, and then made it to Horsham at 12:00pm in time for lunch again. This time we went to one of the local bakeries, where they had the world record for biggest vanilla slice, I just settled for a single serve.

Guessing the previous record was 677.075 kilograms.

We left Horsham at 12:30pm (VIC time) again and stopped for a driver change and the first refuel at Ararat an hour later. Sadly my small fuel tank couldn't get all the way back to Melbourne, and going further to Ballarat would have been a bit risky. I made it 517 kilometres with 35 litres of fuel used, with maybe 5% left on the fuel tank indicator.

Around about Ararat we finally got to return to 110/km again, through to Melton for the final driver change at 3:15pm (VIC time). I missed the turn off at Ballarat Road since I wasn't paying attention, but getting off at the next exit didn't add much time. We got stuck in traffic trying to get through Parkville and onto the Eastern freeway forever, then we were cruising for about three minutes before hitting a big traffic jam due to a two car accident near the Doncaster Road exit - there's no way I could drive to work every day like that without going insane. At last we made it home by 5:00pm (VIC time), just in time to get ready for work again...

If I'd had more time in Adelaide I would have gone to:

• Kangaroo Island 
• Victor Harbor
• Hahndorf
• Mt Lofty
• Glenelg and Magic Mountain
• Port Adelaide (maybe)
• Wine tasting in Barossa Valley (maybe not)

Adelaide 2016, August 14 (Hurt)

I only entered in the shorter 10km event at the Adelaide Marathon festival due to never ending injuries, even that was doubtful but I thought I'd give it a go, although I was only 50-50 about participating up until the day of the event. Jason was running in the half marathon which started at 8:00am but the 10km wasn't until 10:10am, which is very late for a race start.

I walked from the hotel to Adelaide Oval again for the start of the race, and found Jason just as he was finishing his race already. At the beginning of my event I tried to jog the first 500 metres at 6:00/km pace but didn't feel great so I slowed down to 7:00/km, then sadly that become a fast walk soon after, the hamstring injury was still too painful to take any more impact. It was very depressing not being able to run, now I was just hoping to not finish last.

After about four kilometres I had warmed up a bit and managed to get back into a jogging motion at around 7:00/km pace again, and actually overtook a small number of people - some of them might have broken down during the marathon or half marathon though. My right quad was now killing in addition to the right hamstring soreness I'd had for the past month, but more worrying was the left shin stress which took five months to heal last time.

I finished in just under 72:30 or 7:15/km, position 382 of 429 which was of course my worst result ever - I might have come in right around 10th place if healthy. I found Jason again at the finish and went back to the hotel, then to a local pizza place that was open for lunch, it was surprisingly good despite being cheap.

The finish at last.

After lunch we got the free city connector bus to South Terrace in the city - I though for sure being on a bus *and* in Adelaide I would run into Matt but he never showed up. I walked over to the Himeji Gardens for a look, it was extremely small such that you could walk around it in a minute or two, the big sand pit thing was alright I suppose.

Himeji.

A free tram back to Victoria Square next, but the Adelaide Central market was closed on a Sunday - which market wouldn't be open on a Sunday. There was a Bread Top nearby but it had all the same stuff as the Victorian stores, disappointing. A couple of stops further along the tram route and we were at the famous Rundle Mall. It's probably longer than Bourke Street and it has a few more arcades and shopping centres alongside it, but it was generally the same kind of stores. The only purchases I made were an Adelaide magnet at the souvenir store and a new resistance band from the sports store.

Back out of the city again where Uni SA had their annual day. Since it was late in the afternoon already I didn't even managed to score any free stuff! They did have a free simulation tour of a dental surgery, but who would want to do that. After a quick tour along the River Torrens my legs were dead, so we got a free bus back to O'Connell Street in North Adelaide for some food for dinner then another bus back to the hotel.

Karrawirra Parri.

Since we had an early start in the morning the evening was just watching Olympics highlights on TV, the 1.5gb free wifi had almost run out too and I hadn't even installed all of the latest Windows updates on my laptop yet!

Use the forks.

Adelaide 2016, August 13 (CHVRCHES)

It's a bit sad this is my first and only planned 'holiday' for the year so far, but that's how it goes. I left home at 8:00am Saturday morning for the big trip to Adelaide. The most I'd driven the Lancer in one trip before was either to Echuca, Halls Gap or Wangaratta - all pretty similar and about half the distance. Traffic through the city wasn't too bad for Saturday morning, getting through to Ballarat by about 9:45am and then changing drivers somewhere around Beaufort, I forget exactly.

An hour later at Ararat and my back was already wrecked for the day. Coming into Horsham right about 12:00pm was a good time to stop for lunch and to get out of the car and move around for a while. We stopped for about half an hour to get some food at Subway before moving on. I got back into the driver seat and my back was feeling good again, but it only lasted about an hour. I stopped in for fuel at some service station that had huge potholes at the entrance and exit, I think I almost broke the car going through one of them as there was no way to avoid it.

We got to Bordertown at 2:00pm, it seems like false advertising as it doesn't actually appear to be right on the border. Since the day of driving was starting to take it's toll we had to stop a bit more often to stretch out, probably about once an hour through to Murray Bridge at about 4:30pm (SA time), at least there was a bridge over the Murray River this time. I only remembered about the half hour time difference just near the border, a good surprise as it meant a bit more time in the evening than I originally planned for.

Finally we made it into Adelaide about 5:30pm (SA time), the big downhill into the city was probably the highlight of the drive - as well as being able to get out of the car for good. After navigating a few one way streets in North Adelaide we got to the hotel just in time to grab the second last space in the hotel parking lot.

After dropping off the luggage we walked down to the city centre, about two kilometres, past the zoo and university on the way. I picked Fancy Burger's for dinner, lucky one of the three vegetarian burgers wasn't mushroom based, it was alright but not the best I've had.

Rundle Mall.

We made it back out to Adelaide Oval just north of the city in time for the first quarter of Melbourne vs. Port Adelaide. The seats were alright in the top deck, but I soon found out I had some crazy kids sitting right behind me, screaming like mad whenever a Port Adelaide player touched the ball and continually kicking the seat. Thankfully they ran out of energy after about ten minutes, then they left or moved somewhere because I never heard from them again. I was also sitting next to some negative Port Adelaide supporter, at first it was funny but then it just became depressing. I don't even know why he would attend since he was just miserable the whole time, complaining about everything from the worst forward line, being the most frustrating team in the league, they can't win if they start from behind etc.

Adelaide Oval.

Melbourne were always leading the match, but Port Adelaide looked like they might catch up for a while after half time before Melbourne got going again and won quite easily.

Game time.

Only saw one church.

July Review

This is the July review, back on time again.

No baking again.

No exercise again, almost. I had a sore hamstring then stupidly tried to do a park run with the injury and made it ten times worse. So I haven't been able to run at all for three weeks and it's still not close to repaired yet.

I sold a few of my under performing shares, to invest in some mining companies that had been performing well all year. So of course they went crashing down almost immediately and the shares I just sold went up, but I got out without too much damage and switched course again into some software companies. Still I would have been better off just doing nothing, as well as having better dividends coming up in a couple of months...

The Euro 2016 final concluded in July. It was a sad end to a pretty poor tournament without any spectacular games and few great teams. The Tour De France took over from the soccer and although there was a few interesting stages in the hills there was never any real challenge to Chris Froome - except when he had to start running after his bike got damaged in a crash with a camera crew on a motorbike. The NBA free agency generated a few more surprises that both of the above, with teams overspending by at least 50% due to a big increase in the salary cap. I wasn't sad to see Kevin Durant leave Oklahoma, but going to Golden State was the worse possible outcome.

Local gridiron.

I went to the Juventus vs Tottenham ICC "friendly" match at the MCG, right in the middle of a freezing cold winter week. The crowd was only about 30,000 compared to nearly 100,000 for last year, probably due to both teams sending almost none of the starting squad, just Dybala and Pjanic were the exceptions.

ICC at MCG.

A couple of big items on the to do list:

• Holiday - sadly cancelled because of...
• Job - I accepted my job offer, finishing August 10 and starting August 16
• Tax Return - due to bank interest and some dividends I have to pay back $800 this year!

Nothing much left to say about work, I did spend an exhausting weekend doing a DR simulation, the Saturday was 7am to 6pm, meaning I had to leave home before 6am! I should get a bonus three or four weeks pay when I leave, but I'd rather have a holiday...

That's it for another month.

• Books
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
• Quite a short book but an interesting topic
• Have to watch Blade Runner now
• 8 out of 10
• Movies
• The Lost Arcade
• Watched at the MIFF
• Pretty interesting story about arcades struggling to remain open in New York
• A surprising amount of footage, although I don't know how one arcade can't make a profit in all of Manhattan
• 6 out of 10
• Music
• Missed out on Grouplove tickets since I thought I'd be on holiday at the time
• TV
• The Strain
• Finished season one and season two
• Not as good as The Walking Dead, but still a decent survival show
• The kid was really annoying like in most shows
• 6 out of 10
• Between - Season Two
• Only a short season with six episodes
• Like a poor man's version of Under The Dome
• 5 out of 10
• Video Games
• XBox 360
• Final Fantasy XIII-2
• Put Bioshock Infinite on hold, moved on to this instead
• Took a long time to get started, with very boring dialogue
• I really dislike the half-automated and real-time battle system
• 4 out of 10 (so far)