On Saturday I always have to choose between running or cycling, and for several weeks I favoured running. Recently I considered reverting to cycling because it has been a while since I went for a proper ride. At the same time the regular book discussion that is on a Tuesday was moved to a Monday, and if I had noticed sooner I would not have committed to the book discussion.

Waking early is great, to run when it is cooler but it does have a serious drawback. That drawback is that whilst the run might be more pleasant, due to the fresher air, especially evening and morning rain but it has the drawback that if you live in a minergie apartment you never get an opportunity to flush out warm air and replace it with cool air.

Today, as one of my suntan lotion bottles is empty of suntan lotion I decided to clean it with dish soap and water, before adding water to use the suntan lotion bottle as a mister, and so far it has been a partial success.

This morning I woke at 4 to have a shower, have breakfast, and then drive to Morges for a 6am run. As a result I had no opportunity to open windows, aerate or anything else. I kept every room closed so each room is a compartment.

The result, is that the temperature in my flat has been completely flat, varrying by .01 of a degree throughout the day, rather than huge fluctuations.

Today I had the pleasure of going for a run early. I had planned to run at 07:30 to finish right as the shops were opening but I felt too lazy, so I was at the shops by 08:20 and running a few minutes later. I was thinking “Oh it’s still early, so I don’t need to run with water. That was a mistake. What wasn’t a mistake is choosing a course that passes by a number of fountains.

In the news they tell people over and over, “Don’t run in the heat” and don’t go out during the hottest part of the time" and yet they organise fan zones in Nyon, or other events in Asse and more. They tell us that we shouldn’t run, that we shouldn’t cycle but they don’t tell those that make sleeping even harder during a heat wave not to make noise.

Last night I went to sleep absurdly early by recent standards. I went to sleep before 2300, slept for about an hour and a half and then was woken, either by the dish washer that I programmed, or by geniuses (ironic) in cars beeping every few minutes after one of the football teams won the ugly game. Ugly because of the antisocial beeping of horns. Ugly because of the Royal Belge Football Club concerns about corruption within FIFA.

I see news reports and articles that say “Don’t do sports during a heatwave”, which, to me is bad advice. It’s not bad advice to tell people not to push and overheat at the hottest point of the day. It is bad advice not to say “Try to run in the morning” and “Be sure to have water nearby to help cool your body” or even “make sure to run by a river, in a forest, where evapotranspiration is possible.

For many years I went for an after lunch or after work walk. I would easily walk eight to ten kilometres per day. With road works in Nyon that have already lasted for many, many months, and that should last for another year, for several hundred meters of road my walking habit has been made toxic through traffic density and exposure to toxic driving behaviour.

I used to love heading out for an hour or two, to see the fields and crops change with the season. I used to love walking a multitude of routes. With aggressive cars and dogs I shifted to rural walks. This worked for a while, until road works redirected traffic along a critical section of my daily walk, so now I no longer walk at all. I run instead. Even cycling has suffered. I didn’t want to drive during Caribana, because it’s during this event that someone crashed into me driving the petrol scooter for stopping to allow a runner to cross the road and during Paleo in around two weeks because traffic will be much denser.

Today I went trail running in the Jura near St-Cergue and I found the experience okay. I think that the group stopping regularly helped make this a relatively easy run despite the gradient. Cycling got me used to making hard efforts, not for seconds or minutes at a time but for an hour or more, especially when heading up the Jura.

When I run, my fitness has a positive impact, and because running is more egalitarian than cycling, I suffer less to keep up. With cycling I have a heavier steel frame, heavier aluminium wheels, less efficient group set and rim brakes rather than disk brakes. All of those mean that for every climb I am at a disadvantage. I climb faster than some, but it costs me more.

Last night I went to the outdoor cinema again, this time to watch Compostelle. It’s a hiking trip movie. It’s a film that is centered of walking from point A to Point B, over a period of months.

The three main characters are Fred, the adult ‘éducatrice’, Adam, the problem child, and Estella, the girl/woman walking the Camino for the second time, after aborting her first effort. she does so with a leg missing.

Yesterday I went to Gland for a mid-afternoon run before watching Disclosure Day at an outdoor cinema. The run route took me along the Toblerones up to Vich, and then I turned East and ran along a road I often cycle along, before then heading back down, over the motorway, and then over the railway line, back to Gland, and then back to the field where the film screening was taking place.