Last Friday, I went for my first bike ride in about two months. It was probably a terrible idea to start with; I was hung over to hell from Half Way Dinner, and the temperature was nigh on 30C in the shade.

Still, I needed to do something and since study's off the menu for a while and I wasn't really looking forward to packing, I borrowed The Laser's bike and sweated out the excesses from the night before.

Rather than set a cracking pace, I eased around the Kangaroo Point Cliffs and across the Story Bridge, before turning for home along Riverside. I was pleasantly surprised at the vast numbers of people out and exercising. Especially as it was a weekday lunchtime. There were droves and droves; young men and women in sneakers and lycra, mums and their toddlers walking through the gardens, suits strolling the boardwalk to and from lunch, families picnicing. It wasn't a public holiday and K-12 are still in school; but the city was just alive! I'm pretty sure that I'm going to miss this aspect of big city life next year.

Next year the outdoors will be well catered for next year; I'm planning on finding myself a roadbike and clocking some kms. I'm working towards a few fitness milestones including having another crack at the Kokoda Challenge.

I'm also dedicating it the year of medicine. Study will be ramped up and, well, more frequent, regular goal-directed learning is now the priority. This medicine gig is something I want to be damned good at, not just a participator sailing through. The relative isolation of the Coast and the much smaller number of classmates is going to lend itself to more constructive work, and dare I say it, a bit of healthy competition.

Meantime though, the rest of this year's well mapped out, starting with the great European adventure, which begins today. I'll have some good stories in a few weeks, I'd say.