Launceston 2023

June 09

June 10

June 11

June 12

Launceston 2023, June 12

Got up early to run in the fog at 7am, had a bit of a sore left calf develop overnight but was able to run still.

Had a confirmation from the uber driver on Sunday night but they arrived nearly 30 minutes early for some reason and started getting notifications. It was a very quick 15 minute drive to the airport with no traffic, so I was a bit ahead of schedule, had to wait for about an hour. Some other flights were delayed already for the morning, but mine was still showing up as on time. Used up most of the waiting time writing up notes for this trip report.

No issues on the travel back either, so that was the end of the short Launceston trip.

Good

• Easy to walk around the city
• Running tracks along the river in many directions
• Short flight from Melbourne
• Small airport
• Wasn't too cold for early winter - survived with shorts

Bad

• Limited options to get to the airport - no bus
• Not many tourist options around the city
• Only one convenience store and two supermarkets at the other end of the city
• Limited fast food options, most at the other end of the city

Launceston 2023, June 11

Got up at 8:00am to watch the half marathon live stream. It was still only 9:30am once that was over,  and another hour before the 10km race still. I'd had enough waiting around so left for the race around 10:00am, it was only about 1.5 kilometres directly from the hotel so jogged a bit extra to finish warmup.

Started to line up for the start at 10:20am, close enough to the front, but we still had to wait for some 8:00am half marathon finishers to come through so started a bit late. Started off a bit too fast by the time I checked my watch I saw it was under 3:30/km after 500 metres, so eased off a bit.

There was a minor uphill into a light wind for the first half, but no rain. I never really found a pack to run in on the way out, the groups always seemed to slow down when I tried to settle in, so had to overtake soon. The conditions were a bit easier on the way back, but started to get hard from about 7 kilometres. I managed to maintain almost identical speeds for each kilometre for a 35:40 finish, somehow only just inside the top 100 of 550, shows that a lot of fast runners turned up.

The final distance was a bit over 10 kilometre so I should have tried to take the shortest path and might have saved 5-10 seconds. Jogged for another 3km to get back to the hotel but I was definitely ready to take off the Nike Vaporfly race shoes by that time, they are quite tight and narrow.

I watched a replay of the 10km live stream and had lunch back at the hotel. Both live streams were good because there was a lead pack in the men's race until the end, although the women's were not so close.

Walk down to Cataract Gorge in the afternoon, had a right hamstring that was a bit sore so only did the shorter route, no hill climbs. Back through the city to the hotel again, even more quiet on a Sunday afternoon.

I made an uber reservation for the morning trip to the airport, never used that feature before. Actually my registered credit card linked to my account had expired in 2020 which shows when I was last using the service.

Went out again to City Park, just north of the city centre. It was a good size for the location, and even had a random monkey exhibit, they all kept walking around the enclosure in circles and never stopped moving.

That was it for the day, finished with another AFL game for the evening, Carlton lost of course.

Launceston 2023, June 10

The Launceston city parkrun was only about 1.5 kilometres from the hotel, but doesn't begin until 9am so it felt like I was waiting around forever compared to the usual 8am start. There was a lot of wind going over the raised levee section of the course, but at least it wasn't too cold, overall the course was above average. I was only doing some light jogging so finished around 25th place in 22 minutes, then headed back to the hotel.

Heading out again I started off at the Harvest Market in the city, they didn't have much so just got some bread.

Had a long walk that felt like it took forever to pick up the race bib from the event hotel, probably about two kilometres each way, across the river just outside the city. On the way back through the city stopped at a few shops and the other supermarket for some food and then dropped everything back off at the hotel.

Had lunch and rested for a bit, then took a tour of Brisbane Street, the main street of the city. There was very little activity on a Saturday afternoon, and just the usual selection of shops, mostly clothes.

Brisbane Street mall

Decided on another round of Zambrero for my pre-race dinner again for two reasons - 1) there's none near where I live so I don't get to have it often and 2) the only other options like KFC and Subway were at the other end of the city.

I didn't sleep very well before the race, probably having two energy drinks for the day didn't help. The street noise from cars was going until after midnight again and the city church bells keep going off every hour. I'm not sure if they ever stop since I heard them at midnight, 2am, and 5am on different nights - seems very unnecessary.

Launceston 2023, June 09

A second quick trip to Tasmania for the year.

Spent the morning going for a run, playing Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom, and checking work emails so ended up in a rush to make the train in time, but just made it. No delays with the airport bus, flight, and taxi (no alternative) so the whole process ran from about 12:30pm to arrive at the hotel by 4:30pm.

Had to walk down to the other end of the (small) city centre for the nearest Woolworths supermarket. Only about one kilometre from the hotel however, didn't find anything different from Victoria except some flavoured milk drinks. Stopped for a burrito from Zambrero on the way back, only a minute from the hotel was a convenient location, much better than the Guzman option.

I wanted to avoid too much walking and time on my feet before the Sunday morning race, so went straight back to the hotel for dinner and watched the AFL and some TV shows on my laptop. Although the city centre was small and didn't seem to have any night entertainment, there was constantly cars driving around like there was some street racing going on.

May Review

 The May review.

Skipping the miscellaneous section this month.

My first running race since December, recording a similar time to last years XCR Albert Park 10km but I was pretty disappointed as I'd been running much better in 5km parkruns with no preparation or planning. Once again got stuck in the crowd for the first two kilometres. Had another two parkruns around 17:30 shortly afterwards too. Now have to start preparing for Gold Coast half marathon at the start of July while also fitting in a 10km race in Launceston this weekend.

Nothing good to reports in the shares again, seems like one good month is all we're going to get this year. Just never ending bad news - cost of living and inflation, energy prices, housing and rental affordability, interest rate rises, war continuing, USA debt ceiling, USA any other bad news.

The premier league has just finished, and with no football tournament, commonwealth games or olympics to fill in the gap this year means we're just left with AFL on the weekends - with Carlton on track for an incredible bottom four finish right now. The NBA finals are underway too, but I haven't found time to watch any again, just happy that Boston and LA both missed out.

Some minimal progress on the to do list.

• Europe holiday
• Flights booked - one flight already got changed
• Hotel and local travel search underway
• Low excitement with the sky high travel and accomodation prices
• New computer
• Probably wait until holiday planning is finished

Finally able to travel to work again without taking a bus, maybe back to two days a week for a while. Also finally seen the first parts of the project completed after more than 3 years.

That's it for this month.

• Books
• None
• Movies
• None
• Music
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs back after cancelling - got another ticket to try again
• TV
• Lucky Hank
• Above average but not exceptional
• 7 out of 10
• Video Games
• Nintendo Switch
• Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
• Spent many hours wandering around aimlessly so far
• Xbox One
• Forza Motorsport 5
• Completed some more races before starting Zelda