John Cleese at the gym?

I swear John Cleese was on the rower machine at the gym yesterday afternoon. I did a double take as I was doing my interval session on the xtrainer. Ok, so maybe it was the salty sweat running in my eyes making everything blurry but to my mind he definitely looked like John Cleese. I half expected him to do the silly walk once he'd finished but sadly he merely got up and walked away normally. Oh well it was fun to imagine having John Cleese working out on the rower, just across from me!

It was day five of running this morning, down at the local oval and it was so pleasant at the early hour of 5.30am. Again I was on my own, with only one other woman out walking her dog. Today I ran 4 x 4min with 1 min walk in between. It went well so pretty chuffed about that.

Session
Time: 29.57min
Total distance: 3.91km
Actual run distance: 2.62km

On the radio this morning the announcers were talking about the weather forecast for the next few days (ie hot) and asking listeners for their experiences of scorching hot days they'd experienced in the past. It got me thinking about a couple of ones I've experienced over the years. My first memory of really really hot weather was when we moved from SA to WA and we were travelling across the Nullabor in summer - along a dirt road as there was no bitumen highway as there is now. This was in the late sixties, when I was 7, my brother was 5 and my sister was 6 months old. The temperature each day was in the 50's. The car had no air conditioning, and we had to stop at each place to top up the water for the hessian bag at the front of the car. At some stage the car overheated. It was horrible - everything shimmered in the scorching heat. There were bed bugs and rats at one place we stayed and at another place, Nundroo I think, mum was bailed up by a sow and her piglets at the outside toilet.

Another time was when I moved (temporarily) to Kalgoorlie in the late 70's. It was summer and I had never experienced such intense heat - if I dared go outside I thought I was going to melt. It was sooooo hot and the heat reflected off the pavements and roads. The place I was staying had no air conditioning and a tin roof and I spent most of that summer sitting about 2 inches from a fan draped in wet towels. It was not a pleasant experience and I have never had the urge to revisit the place. I could definitely understand the attraction of the pub (and Kalgoorlie has no shortage of them) - they were the coolest places in town.

And finally, it wasn't as hot as the days mentioned above, but combine hot, weather, with hills (particularly a relentless uphill start that seems to go on and on forever), mostly no shade and the sun beating down mercilessly, and running, having already completed 20 odd-km - this memory has been forever burned into my subconscious. That, and the bliss of collapsing into the water at Vanities. Twofruits and softshoeshuffle would know what I am referring to!