I’m in Kansas City this week on business and after a day setting up a trade show booth I ventured out into the local neighborhood to get some exercise. I discovered that August in the mid-west can be hot! Yesterday we spent 6 hours in an exhibition hall with no air conditioning and the conditions were so bad a vendor at another booth passed out. Today it was much more tolerable but outside when I went running the temperatures were around 96 degrees with 51% humidity. If I thought running last Friday back in CT was sticky, this was like running through quick setting cement. The hotel recommended a local park area which has a foot path around the edge which is covered by a soft rubberised material designed for running. Great I thought, at least it will be away from traffic and a little softer underfoot.

I left the cool hotel lobby and ventured out into the blast furnace atmosphere suitably armed with a small water bottle. The park was about a half mile from the hotel and by the time I reached it I was blowing hard. Once on the track, the two or three tiny elevations (there definately couldn’t be classed as gentle undulations) felt mountainous but I managed to drag myself around the small loop three times. The few people sitting in various shady spots looked on as if I was nuts and the water I has carried was gone within 30 minutes - most of it over my head. One one side of the park I’d run into a gentle head wind that rather than being refreshing just it feel worse!

Where do fried squirrels come into all this? On each lap at the same point, I passed a squirrel. I assumed it was the same one but what was different about it, compared to the ones I’m used to seeing back in CT, was the speed it moved or should I say the lack of speed. Each time I drew close, it would only hop a couple of feet away and continue to forage about. I guess in the hot conditions, it wasn’t going to exhaust itself dashing about. So, as the famous song by Noel Coward says, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun!