4:03 am
The first time I looked at the clock on my phone. The alarm wasn't due to wake me 'til 5, but it seems the Mister was awake and therefore, so was I.
4:31 am
In the kitchen, downing a new creation I made last night: a half water, half almond milk, vanilla protein shake with a blended banana for extra smooth texture (and carbs!)
5:25 am
Using a small light in the kitchen to check we definitely have everything we need to set up our local parkrun.
5:43 am
We've begun! As you can see, in the middle of winter it's dark as heck in the bush where this parkrun is held.
6:28 am
The sun has risen. The head torches are off and instead of only hearing wallabies crashing through the bush, we can finally see them too!
6:58 am
The parkrun run brief has been delivered and I, along with half the small crowd, peel my additional layers of and walk to the start line.
7:26 am
5km of running on one of the hardest parkruns in Australia and I'm done. I've finished 9th overall, as the 2nd female and I have a new course PB 🙌
8:29 am
We're in the car, backing out the driveway. After a speedy turnaround post parkrun, we're now mentally preparing ourselves for a very long day of driving. The goal: 8 hours of driving time with minimal breaks to get as close to Sydney as we can without accidents or arguments.
10:31 am
We've got through the Gold Coast, into New South Wales and stopped at a proper Rest Stop complete with good enough toilets (that I use), picnic tables (that I mostly ignore) and plenty of wide, open grassy space (that I do push ups on):
6 on my toes, 6 on my knees, 6 on a low table and 12 on a high bench. Or something like that; the actions of the day have already started to blend into travel, stop, travel, stop, where are we?
The minutes tick over.
Kilometre after kilometre of highway driving sees us pass by one familiar town after another.
We gratefully watch the hours until we arrive at our chosen sleeping spot shrink: 5 hours, 4 hours, 3 hours.
I pull out my laptop and prepare videos for their release on my business channel. I'm grateful to get this tedious task done but I'm so sick of the screen after the hour or more it's taken me.
After lunch sometime...
I drive for 40, 45, 50 minutes.
We stop. I pee. He drives for 1 hour 10, 20, 30.
We stop. I do dips whole he does pushups. We buy something to slurp and munch on other that seems more appealing than what we already have in our esky.
3:22 pm
I call the motel I've picked through the multitude of options. They do have the room I wanted free still. I book it on the spot.
4:44 pm
We're sitting in Oliver's, a healthy fast food restaurant chain, eating our vegan burgers that have just been handed to us. This is our dinner. We have 45 minutes of driving left.
6:07 pm
I step into the shower. We did it. We drove an über long way (for us) and we're now more than halfway to our final destination: the Snowy Mountains, where we will go skiing (again!) on Monday.
7:12 pm
I think about how to finish up a Hive post that took me way longer to write than I imagined when I began it 27 minutes ago. This chicken is ready for bed. 💤
(Photos taken by either me or the Mister (