NSW and Canberra 2017-18

December 28
December 29
December 30
December 31
January 01

December Review

A quick final month since I've got some yearly and holiday stuff to do.

Lots of running at some new park runs:

• Hagley Park in Christchurch
• Maribyrnong - 19:00 and 6th, not a great performance
• Marriott Waters - 19:15 and 1st, but took a wrong turn and ran further
• Hastings Foreshore - 20:00 and 2nd on Christmas, sore calf following up a weekend long run
• Merimbula - 20:00 and 6th, usual holiday fatigue

Also did some exploring for a few different weekend long run routes:

• Darebin Creek trail, started from Yarra Flats, need to explore more
• Gardiners Creek trail, just went further
• Warburton rail trail, but starting from Mt Evelyn instead, much steeper

Not too many injuries to complain about, except for one day I had some very strange shin pain that would show up every five or ten minutes all day.

No biking yet but went to the boxing day sales, the Scott Speedster Gravel 20 Disc 2018 seemed like a good option at a fair price.

A little bit of shifting around my shares, I am still waiting for the final stages of my investment loan to go through, specifically moving some shares from my cash portfolio to the loan portfolio to use as security. I've been documenting the steps and will put it all together once it is finally started.

I sold a few shares to fund some investment into capital raising schemes, only the capital raising was over allocated and I only got about 10% of what I was after. It's kind of annoying since I sold some good shares to come up with the money, then they've increased in value by the time I finally got my refund.

The holidays should have been a good time to finally clear out a stale to do list:

• December holiday
• Wasn't much accomodation available within the last few weeks
• Came up with the best possible plan for a few days (and a few park runs)
• NZ trip report
• Finished early January but I'll claim it here
• See New Zealand 2017
• Share Investment
• Lots of work to get it going, already mentioned above

Been a bit frustrating at work, but finally got on to a new project after a couple of weeks of uncertainty. The people seem good and the project is not a bad mix of new and existing skills for me, but I would have preferred to go to a project that is just starting rather than one that is already matured. The other problem is the office is really crap, I don't even have a proper desk space yet.

That's it for this month and year:

• Books
• None
• Movies
• Murder On The Orient Express
• Quite disappointing, story was confusing and not explained well
• 5 out of 10
• Star Wars - The Last Jedi
• Didn't really get anything new
• Several parts of the movie were unnecessary
• 7 out of 10
• Music
• Muse at Rod Laver Arena
• Got tickets in the last week from stubhub
• Possibly slightly less than original cost
• Didn't know about 4 songs from new albums, the rest was good
• 8 out of 10
• TV
• American Vandal
• Surprisingly good teen fictional series like Making A Murderer and Serial
• 8 out of 10
• Survivor Season 35
• Good strategies most of the way for once, just unraveled at the end
• 7 out of 10
• Video Games
• Nintendo Switch
• Might start looking for a good console deal soon
• Xbox One
• Bought Forza Horizon 3 Blizzard Mountain and Hot Wheels expansions
• Not sure how to redeem it yet

NSW and Canberra 2018, January 01 (Double Down)

Off to Tuggeranong park run for an extra early 7:30am start on new year's day, but only a 10 minute walk from the hotel was good. On the way towards the start there was just non-stop cars arriving, everyone must have had an early night in Canberra.

I was just feeling generally tiredness during warm-up and the start. Had two runners with dogs decide to start up front, which is really annoying to try and run behind and then overtake without getting tripped up. The course was just a standard out and back along the lake and across a bridge, but had some tricky sharp corners.

Like almost every park run there was a few serious runners way out in front, and somehow I'm always around 10th. Got past a couple of the way back again to finish 8th about 19:15 but the course was slightly short for distance.

Tuggeranong.

Had time go back to the hotel to shower and change before driving to the north side of the city for the Gungahlin park run at 9:30am, an even bigger crowd of over 500 and even more runners from athletics clubs. Trying to recover from the first run and then go again an hour later is almost impossible, so I knew I had no chance of a top ten and didn't try to go too hard.

I thought I'd started easy but was still under 20 minute pace, although with the late start time it what really starting to get hot. The course was probably better, a full lap of the lake but all on concrete footpaths. I did manage to overtake some people along the way, but there was a big group just too far ahead to try and catch so I had to settle for 14th but a similar time of about 19:30. Maybe I'll come back one day for a top ten.

Gungahlin.

Got changed and back in the car to start the drive home, I made it to Gundagai for lunch then just past the border before my back was killing, just gets so tight from driving so soon after running. Spent a couple of hours trying to stretch out in the passenger seat but didn't really help.

Steps: 6000 + 12.5km running