May Review

 The May review a bit late again.

A few news events for the miscellaneous section:

• An important topic, but the domestic violence outrage dominated the news for a week, politicians committed some money, then it hasn't been heard of since
• The state budget came through, and another four year delay at least for an airport train - it will only be more expensive and difficult the longer it is delayed
• The federal budget came through too, nothing for housing affordability but everyone gets $300 for energy bills !

On with the usual topics starting with running, no races for the month so just some average results at parkrun around 17:50. The only exception was trying to run on icy bridges at Frog Hollow without slipping over, resulting in a much slower time. Had a bit of a battle with a sore knee and a tight calf, but both luckily cleared up within a week.

A bit of shopping for the month too, a pair of Nike Vomero 17 and a second pair of Puma Magnify Nitro 2 since they were each about 40% off. And a new generic charging cable for my Garmin Forerunner means I don't need to buy a new watch, the previously cable just wasn't being detected by Windows anymore.

Just as I was thinking my shares were doing well for the year they went on three consecutive weeks of losses almost every day, I'm back to the beginning of 2024 again, if not worse. It might be time to just sell up and put most of it towards a house deposit. I tried to invest in another share purchase plan but it was oversubscribed like usual so about 50% got refunded.

In other finance related news I signed up for another pair of regular and high interest accounts with another bank, since my current one is changing their rules and reducing the interest rates. I think I've now got accounts with five different banks, although two are empty.

Heading into a bit of a slow period of sports with the premier league finished and NBA finals about the start, but I haven't got much interest in that at the moment. At least we have a few other things like the T20 world cup, European soccer championships and Olympics on the way soon. I went to the match between Newcastle and Tottenham at the MCG, it was very strange to be organised less than three days after the premier league finished. The first half had most of the regular players but the second half was pretty boring and a rotating cast of substitutes.

The to do list is slowly moving along:

• Blogs
• Haven't done the 2023 or 2024 posts - aiming for this month
• Holidays
• Still undecided, USA looks very expensive and a bit less likely this year now
• New computer
• Fully running with the new computer at last, although I prefer Windows 10 to 11
• Finally purchased a small, cheap KVM switch which is working great
• Running holidays
• Still depends on other holidays, but been watching for Singapore Marathon registrations

Also up and running with a new computer at work that wasn't too bad after a long first day waiting hours for the machine to initialise, otherwise nothing much else.

That's it for this month.

• Books
• None
• Movies
• None
• Music
• None
• TV
• Race Across The World season 3
• Actually spent the whole season in Canada
• Did not like how much time they had to spend hitchhiking as a transport solution
• 4 out of 10
• Video Games
• Xbox 360
• Dead Space 3
• Finished at last
• Replayed on Classic mode, didn't realise it was fixed at hard difficulty
• Replace on Pure Survival mode, also hard difficulty and no ammo/health drops

Brisbane 2024

May 31

June 01

June 02

Brisbane 2024, June 02

I only had to set my watch alarm for 8:00am today since the race start wasn't until 9:00am and was only five minutes away from the hotel. Strangely I wasn't feeling very thirsty in the morning so just had some biscuits before leaving for the race.

There were no trains going through the city for the entire weekend, so there was lots of traffic due to that plus the marathon road closures. A lot of people were already lining up at the start but I had a priority entry so didn't have to deal with the huge crowd, instead I found a small street nearby to do a short warmup.

From the beginning the first two kilometres of the race had a lot of hills, and steeper than I expected, although I hadn't seen a course elevation map. My watch was saying only 3:50/km but I wasn't sure how accurate it was with all the tall buildings around. I was feeling quite good as we got onto the bridge section and overtook a few people up the next hill that followed.

From about the four kilometres onwards I was on my own, except for overtaking lots of the four hour plus marathon runners who started much earlier at 6:00am. I finally caught a couple of people in the 10km race on the flatter river walk section heading back to the finish, before hitting one more steep hill.

I don't think I ever pushed right to the limit since I wasn't familiar with the course or conditions. I ended up finishing in the top 20 and first for age category in around 36:30, but it probably helped having other bigger ten kilometre races in Launceston and Melbourne on the same day. Overall I was a bit disappointed with the time, about three races in a row now finishing around 36:30 when I was hoping for close to 36 minutes. They had free clif bars at the finish which was nice.

I walked back to the hotel soon after finishing and put on my old running shoes for a short jog, taking their total up to 997 kilometres. Afterwards I had another trip to the city centre to bring back some lunch. I thought I'd be able to watch a live stream of the Launceston running festival but they didn't have one this year, so just had to watch other TV shows.

After lunch I went to both the pool and sauna to recover, my legs were still quite tired so I didn't go for an afternoon run before dinner. After dinner it was already time to pack up to leave in the morning.

Brisbane 2024, June 01

I set my watch alarm for an early 6:30am start since the parkrun state wide starts at 7:00am instead of the usual 8:00am in most other locations.

For once I had a quiet hotel fridge that didn't need a loud power cycle every half hour. I also managed to turn off the split system heating so it wasn't running all night, despite never having instructions how to operate these mysterious devices in any hotel room ever. I thought it was still running because I kept hearing a rumbling that sounded like the heating, but it was actually the faint vibration from the nearby elevators going up and down.

I got up on time at 6:30am and had a short 1.5 kilometre jog across the bridge to South Bank in time for parkrun. There was quite a big crowd of nearly 600 people, and not a particularly wide course in some parts either. Lots of other runners, cyclists and scooter riders were out early too, before it got too hot I suppose - although the daily maximum was only about 25 it was already quite humid.

I started up near the front then found a good gap without people getting in the way, and not having to race anyone. I counted about 30 people in front at the turn around inside the Botanical Gardens, then we headed back to the start and west along the river - I liked this section of the course better.

I didn't change position much after the start, except one guy still had to sprint past me at the end for no reason to finish about 30th. The time of about 21:30 which was a bit quicker than I planned, but not too bad. I also got the add the "south" event to my parkrun compass achievement, so just need a "north" now. I ran back to hotel for some breakfast and to rest for a bit.

The expo in the Botanical Gardens was open so I walked across to pick up my race bib and anniversary t-shirt which looked ok - sometimes the free shirts aren't worth wearing. I dropped off those items back at the hotel then continued into the city centre. I found out again it takes forever to cross intersections since all directions walk at once, so if you just miss out it's a very long wait. I got some fresh food for lunch and then back to the hotel to eat and rest some more, discovered a pink marshmallow flavoured milk this time.

I walked around the city centre again after lunch but didn't find anything interesting to do, so went back to the hotel to go to the swimming pool for a while, it was nearly empty. It was soon time for dinner already so took a quick trip to the local KFC for the classic large chips and mountain dew freeze combo. My legs were still feeling a bit tired from the previous two days but I was hoping they'd be back to normal by the morning.