Brisbane 2025, May 31

I had to get up at 6:00am to begin the trip for parkrun, and saw lots of rain on the radar coming from the north of Brisbane. As a precaution I took a rain jacket and walked down to the bus station, and luckily the street closure had reopened earlier than 6:30am.

The bus was a couple of minutes late and made lots of stops, but arrived just before 6:50am with a few minutes to spare before the event briefing. The numbers for parkrun weren't as high as I was expecting, maybe because of the possibility of rain, it turned out to be 350 which was a bit below average.

Other than some very light rain at the beginning it was all clear the rest of the way, The course is run on a very narrow path alongside the river, and also had some slippery boardwalks, but there was lots of marshals around to help. It was a fairly fast field so I just made it into the top 40 at about 22:30, my legs felt a bit tired by the end but not that bad.

I must have just missed the return bus although I didn't notice it going past while walking to the bus stop. It was a much quicker bus ride back to city when the next one showed up, and then stopped in at another Coles metro for some food.

After a short rest at the hotel I walked over to the race venue for bib collection just after 9:00am. The rain had started again but it wasn't too heavy and and not too cold either. I just got my race bib and the free t-shirt, which didn't seem to be manufactured by one of the running brands but the quality was still alright. There wasn't much else for sale that I was interested in so just went back to the hotel.

There was just enough time to walk to Central station for a trip to DFO near the airport. Walking over to the Toombul bus interchange the shopping centre had now been completely knocked down and only grass was remaining.

At the DFO I started at Nike, where everything was 40% off again. I found one good running t-shirt but no shorts or jumpers. There was a Nike Invincible for about $110 after discount but I wasn't sure if I need another pair.

The next stops were at Puma, Asics, Adidas, Brooks, and New Balance. There was hardly any running shoes in any stores, although surprisingly Brooks had some but less than five pairs of each type and none in my size. Even the clothes in each store was disappointing, just very generic stuff. Hoka had a good range of running shoes but everything was full price at nearly $400, so it was more like a regular store than an outlet.

I got the bus and train back to the city and my legs were actually feeling pretty good still. Before going back to the hotel for lunch I stopped at Woolworths and then Coles again. My legs quickly went from good to bad so I went straight back to the hotel to rest again and eat lunch, and watch the latest episode of Welcome To Wrexham.

I was surprised my step count had quickly gone up over 12000 after just the trip to the DFO. For the afternoon I went down to the indoor hotel pool, the temperature was a bit disappointing, much too cold.

For an early dinner I ordered some chips from Nando's and turned up at the quoted time, but they were nearly cold by the time I got back. I decided to watch the A-League men's final since both Melbourne teams were playing, but it wasn't very exciting.

• Run = 5 km
• Steps = 14,196

Brisbane 2025, May 30

 I only had time to squeeze in a quick 4.5 kilometre in the morning due to running late trying to get some work tasks done for the day. Also partly due to those time constraints I took a train 30 minutes later than my original, quite conservative plan

• 11:45 train
• 12:15 Southern Cross bus
• 12:45 airport
• 1:15 got food and walked to gate
• 2:10 departure delayed 15 minutes for extra fuel
• 4:20 arrival delayed 15 minutes

I got stuck in a window seat again, and with such limited space between rows you can barely get to your seat. After a slow exit from the plane the next train into the city was only four minutes away. The train departed at about 5pm but was quite slow for most of the trip. The airport section of the trip still costs $22 for only one stop before joining the regular train network,  where all trips cost only 50 cents. On the train I completed the check-in for the return flight and received yet another window seat near the back to the plane.

The walk from Central station to the hotel took about 10 minutes, and there was only very light rain. I booked the same hotel as last time since it was close to the Botanic Gardens race expo, and the race start and finish lines. Walking through the city the construction work for the new train stations looked no different to last year. The one change was that one street was going to be closed from 6:30pm to 6:30am for some time, so I would have to detour by a whole city block during those times.

The shutdown seems like bad timing being on the same weekend as the Brisbane Marathon festival, particularly with the early starts for the marathon and half marathon events. It was a similar situation last year when they shut down all of the inner city train lines for the race weekend.

After hotel check-in I quickly walked back to Coles at 6:00pm to get some food before the street closed. The supermarket just had the same basic stuff except for lots of strange milk flavours, but I settled for banana rather than risk something that might taste bad.

Back at the hotel I did some research for public transport to get to New Farm parkrun which starts at 7:00am in Queensland - probably a bit unnecessary for the winter months. My hotel room was right near the elevators, so I was hearing a bit of noise and vibration during the night, even going after 1:00am.

• Run - 4.5 km
• Steps - 10,578

Sydney 2025

May 16

May 17

May 18

Sydney 2025, May 18

For the 10 kilometre morning race the elite and sub 40 group was scheduled to started at 7:20am. The start line was close to the hotel, just across the road and a few hundred metres towards Accor Stadium.

There was a bit of rain overnight again so the roads were wet, but only very light rain was still going. I was able to delay leaving the hotel until 6:50 and did a quick warm up for two kilometres. I was a long way from the front when the start line was opened, but I was only expecting to finish around 200th based on last years results.

From the beginning it was very busy, making it hard to even stay inside the cones on the outside line of the course. Due to this amount of people I was having to go much further than the ideal racing line, and there was a very slow point at the first turn when exiting the Accor Stadium loop, although I still recorded a good 3:35 first kilometre.

There was a few slopes heading out towards Wentworth Common, and my times dropped to about 3:39 and it was still very busy on the road. After the turn around was the two small uphill sections on the way back to Accor Stadium, which was the hardest part of each lap.

I managed to maintain consistent times into the second lap and got down to 3:34 per kilometre. The second time going uphill was a bit harder again, but didn't impact my time. I was finally hurting a little for the final section into the athletics stadium, it was a long way around the outside before finally getting to the track entrance.

Finally we got onto the track for a bit of a sprint finish, where I was only slightly faster. My average pace of 3:36 was good and would have been close to 36 minutes, but was actually about 36:30 due to the extra distance from not taking the optimal racing line. My finish position was a bit outside the top 250 due to the big increase in participants.

The race course was quite good overall, I didn't mind doing two laps, but having some many fast people to navigate was a small negative. I'd probably come back and do it again some time, but not desperate to come back next year specifically.

After walking back to the hotel I had to quickly get ready to leave at 9:00, on a bus and then two trains but still got the airport in almost an hour, with about an hour to wait for boarding. The short time between running and hours of sitting really had an impact on my legs, so I was thankful to finally get off the flight in Melbourne.

Sydney 2025, May 17

Had to get up around 7:30am for a 2 kilometre run to the closest parkrun at Wentworth Common. After that 2 kilometres on my watch I was at the Brick Pit but still hadn't found the parkrun area yet, but before starting to panic I found it was just another 100 metres further ahead.

The course was a bit wet and muddy from the overnight rain, starting with a one kilometre loop around Wentworth Common then heading back towards the Olympic Park precinct. Near the turnaround there was a couple of spots where the footpath had flooded and the alternative was muddy grass.

I only jogged at about 4:30/km the whole way and was in about 20th position. In the final kilometre I could hear some guy trying to overtake me so I ran faster for the last 200 metres to the finish line.

Combined walking and jogging to get back to hotel, and noticed some car show was being setup near Accor Stadium.

I managed to connect to the hotel wifi with VPN, which wasn't working yesterday. After changing I got ready for a short bus ride to Homebush DFO, a much better idea than walking two kilometres each way. There was stores for Adidas, Asics, Nike, and Puma but no New Balance yet.

I just got some running shorts from Adidas and a pair of Structure 25 shoes from Nike to make the trip worthwhile. The stock was quite disappoint and only Puma had a few actual running shoes for sale.

I risked buying a tub of berry yoghurt to take back on the bus, luckily the bus came on time and was a quick trip. Then it was back to the Woolworths Metro again for some other items for lunch, to watch some shows on my computer and rest my legs, which were a bit sore from standing and walking.

After lunch I walked back to Olympic Park station but the morning car show had finished already. Instead I took a quick trip to Strathfield Plaza and back on the train, which was travelling slow again.

Heading back to the hotel I picked up my race bib, which was just across the road at the athletics centre. Both of my legs were now feeling a little sore in the hamstrings so I needed to rest some more in the afternoon before dinner. At the hotel I watched the afternoon AFL before ordering some food for dinner, then watched some more shows and Twitch streams before an early night.

Sydney 2025, May 16

The standard long trip to the airport in the late afternoon:

• 1:15 Train to Southern Cross
• 2:15 Bus to airport
• 2:45 Airport
• 4:30 Leave almost on time

It took about 20 minutes just for people to get all their large carry-on luggage to fit in the overhead compartments.

Then the Sydney side of the travel day was:

• 6:15 Arrive about 20 minutes late
• 6:40 Train to Central station
• 7:30 Train to Lidcombe station took 45 minutes instead of 15 due to track problems
• 7:40 Train to Olympic Park with a big crowd for an NRL game
• 8:00 Hotel

So about 7 hours of travel for a flight of less than 90 minutes.

There was a Woolworths Metro very close to the hotel but I didn't find anything great for a late dinner.

Back at the hotel I just had time to watch some AFL with Carlton losing to Sydney.

April Review

A rare two items for the miscellaneous section this month.

The election campaign was underway for the whole month, with politicians travelling through multiple states each day to make more short term announcements. In the background the issue of housing affordability goes unanswered because there are more "have" than "have not" voters.

Meanwhile following the USA elections the rest of the world was impacted but numerous rounds of tariff announcements, even going over 100% increases. With only three years of stability and recovery after the covid years we could do without another round of global uncertainty.

A busy month of running according to my notes, so I'll switch to a list:

• Two slow parkruns before race day
• Two faster parkruns in the 17:50 range, but not managing regular 17:30 yet
• After a few weeks using the Garmin 955 I got to try it out on track mode
• It defaulted to 1 mile auto lap so I had to manually stop the first time
• The distance is much more accurate, so my training looks slower than usual
• A rare trip to the Nike factory outlet and an unexpected 40% sale
• Most shoes were about three years old so only got one pair of Infinity Run 3
• Two races at each end of the month
• Run For The Kids 14.4km
• Up at 6am to leave for the train
• Started slow, still felt good at 12km but didn't have much more speed for the finish
• Hills weren't too bad except for the last one at Southern Cross
• Ballarat Marathon 10km
• Hoped to finish a bit closer to 36:00 but had some wind around the lake
• Could have gone quicker for the downhill finish if I knew how the course ended
• Sore hamstrings driving both to and from Ballarat

Based entirely on the tariffs mentioned above there was a big drop in shares everywhere around the world. The decrease included 8% in a week and another 5% over the weekend. The technology shares like Nvidia were down even more. The rest of the month was spent slowly recovering a bit of the loss.

Another month of major expenses will hopefully settle down now:

• Holiday flights $2500
• Holiday hotels $4000
• Holiday tickets - Universal Studios $250
• PlayStation 5 with games $900
• Tax quarterly payment $1800

Had some rare athletics coverage on television with the Australian national championships - the 1500m and 5000m were the most interesting - and the Stawell Gift.

The to do list has a bit of progress:

• Running
• XCR 5km June 15 - depends on my half marathon training
• Auckland half marathon November 2 - probably instead of Singapore again
• Winter Holiday
• Japan flights booked for July
• Japan hotels booked
• Osaka Universal Studios booked via Japan website translated by Google
• Other tickets aren't on sale until May

Things are slowing down again at work towards the end of the financial year, so hopefully I'm not sitting around with nothing to do. I've finished studying for the Java exam and now doing a lot of sample tests, but the amount of trick questions and needing to memorise Javadoc type information is very annoying. Hopefully I can get through the remaining tests and do just enough the pass the exam in the next month.

That's it for this month.

• Books
• None
• Movies
• The Monkey
• Disappointing, even for a Stephen King short story adaptation
• The reviews suggested much better
• 3 out of 10
• Music
• None
• TV
• Boy Swallows Universe
• Entertaining Australian short series, set in the 1980's was quite authentic
• 8 out of 10
• Severance season 1
• The first episode was very slow and depressing but it got better afterwards
• The Enter Sandman scene was a highlight
• 7 out of 10
• Severance season 2
• Didn't really expand on the first season
• 5 out of 10
• The White Lotus season 3
• Another great season with a good cast
• 8 out of 10
• Video Games
• PlayStation 5
• Got an Astro Bot disc console just before all retail prices increased
• Alan Wake 2 deluxe
• Final Fantasy 16 - hasn't arrived yet
• Gran Turismo 7 - PS4 version is all I could find for a new copy