First race since surgery

This is the race number from my first race since heart-surgery 12 weeks ago. I thought the title was appropriate. It was a 10 km charity road race for 'sick kids' at the Brisbane Royal Children's Hospital. I entered on a whim and I'm glad I did. It started at a respectable 8:00 am from nearby Orleigh Park and I was unsure how fast I could go, particularly since I haven't run this far since February. In the end, I was quite pleased with my 51 min 38 sec and with my heart-rate which reached 175 towards the end (that's almost 3 beats per second!). I'm glad the patch in my septum held :-) I've even started doing a little cycling and light weight lifting.

And a few more images from Montville

Montville is absolutely packed on Sundays for all of these reasons and more.

Montville

We went to 'The Dreaming', an indigenous cultural festival. It was freezing and we didn't camp (thankfully), but stayed nearby in a nearby mountain village - also freezing, but beautiful. My favorate act at 'The Dreaming' was a rock band called 'Blue King Brown', but this country and western singer (Troy Cassar Daley) was also pretty good.

More wildlife

While I prefer the Gold Coast, Southbank and Logan campuses of Griffith University, the Nathan Campus is set in Toohey forest with some interesting inhabitants. Unfortunately, they've become scavengers of human detritus.

Cat politics

Our apartment block is actually a cat run. If you wake in the morning to find a mat has been wrestled or a mouse dismembered, then you have had a visitor. Here are two of the protagonists from units 2 and 5 respectively (the 3rd is probably off killing something).