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