Holy Crap it's Hot!

Seriously, I've had enough of this hot humid weather. I literally broke into a sweat while brushing my teeth this morning! The high the past two days was 36 C, I have no idea what it was with the humidity factored in, they use the dew point temperature here rather than a relative scale. Accordingly though there would have been condensation on any surface at or below 21 C.

So what do I do when it gets this hot out? Well, being a highly educated individual I've always found the best thing to do in hot weather is more exercise. Particularly a nice long bike ride at a blistering fast pace. That's right folks, Saturday I went out for a ride with a bunch of guys from Birchwood again. The ride started a little after 9 am, so that it would be a bit cooler, but that didn't really help much (it was already 30 C outside). The first three hours of the ride went rather well, we probably averaged about 34 km/h before we stopped in a small town for more water and a little rest before the 3 km long climb out of the valley, which was followed by about 30 km of rollers until we got back to town. Well I don't know if it was the stop, the heat, the hill or all three but the return part of the ride was just deadly. We were a group of about 8 or 9 guys, but after the hill we broke into groups of 2 or 3 riders who could hold the same pace, which was now somewhere just below 30 km/h for myself. It was just really harsh riding at that point, the road was like an stove top and I was drinking and pouring water on myself to try and cool off, yet hoping to save enough to make it to St-Paul. We all made it back into St-Paul and made an alter of a public water fountain along the bike path for a while before we continued home.

So despite having lost plenty of fluids and salt what did I decide to do next? Sleep, eat, drink, rest? Nah, that's for wusses, I went out to play dodgeball. Ok, I did drink a whole lot of fluids before I left, plus I kind of napped for about 45 minutes, and was about an hour late for the start of the dodgeball games. But it was fun, as I knew it would be, so I'm glad that I went. Well except for the point where I fried to avoid a shot to my lower legs by jumping and doing the splits, only to realize at the last moment that the shot was rising! Let's just say that it was a good thing that I was out, because I needed a bit of rest at that point.

That night at least I decided to be a bit more reasonable in my ventures. Rather than sitting over a hot stove I decided to go out to a jazz bar/restaurant and enjoy the air conditioning, music and food. The place was really nice and the band was particularly good. I now have a fond appreciation for the clarinet as a jazz instrument. It has a much smoother, more subtle sound than a saxophone or trumpet.

At one point during my dinner however I almost became a rather interesting spectacle. I was sitting at my table, a high table with bar style chairs, when a muscle in the back of my leg suddenly cramped. I almost fell out of my chair and would have likely been rolling on the floor in pain if the spasm hadn't released as soon as it did. I guess that's just the price I pay for working out in this ridiculous weather.