Smug Treadmill Haters

Alright you Smug Treadmill Haters.  I know you're out there.  I know you're smirking to yourself as you run on roads that bypass gyms where the treadmills sit in the window so everyone in the outside world can see them thinking, 'that's not real running; those poor bubble-wrapped saps won't know what's hit them when they get into the real world of half marathons in the heat and the humidity of Angkor Wat.'

You were right.

I admit it.

At first, when you all kept knowingly telling me that I wouldn't be able to run as fast outside as I could in an air-conditioned gym, I thought, 'hey, guys, have you been to my "air-conditioned" gym?  There are gaps in the panes of glass that separate the cardio machines from the weights sauna and the heat creeps in and in two minutes I am drenching the display of the treadmill with torrents of my own sweat.'  Then when you said, 'your biggest challenge will be the humidity and the heat when you're running', I snorted and turned my nose up at you mist-ridden Limeys and called across Asia and Europe, 'Hey!  I've acclimatised!  I don't even break a sweat until it hits 33 degrees, and most days I prance around happily in jeans in 32.  I'm like one of those French girls you see in the south of France who rock about in leather jackets when any normal person would be melting in a bikini and desperately seeking shade.'

I take it back.  I take it all back.

Today, I went for a run.  Outside.  Outside in the terrible, terrible heat.  It was 28 degrees.  I managed 3.47miles (5.6k) in about 45 minutes, stopping four times for two stitches, and at one point holding my stomach in case I vommed into the middle of the road.  Running in the heat is hard.  Luckily, I had been persuaded into this, and was accompanied by PE Teacher B, who will now be known as The Hare.  Is this the same PE Teacher B who took advantage of a drunken Emma and in her own over-excited and intoxicated tones piped up her endearingly Yorkshire voice to yell across a bar, 'Yeah, Emma, let's do it!  It'll be a raaight laff!'  I hear you ask?  Yes.  Yes it is.

I don't hold it against her though, because running behind The Hare is always a joy, even when I am plodding along like a wrinkly-necked tortoise, waiting for the inevitable heart-attack to hit me.  The Hare has long, striding legs and a bouncy, joyful running style that I gaze at enviously.  Her pony-tail swish swishes back and forth and she has a headband that keeps any stray strands out of her eyes so that she always looks together and with it and less sweaty than other people around her.  The minute I start sweating, my hair has a hula party and frizzes up into a genetically illogical afro.  To counter this, I bought a slightly less cool head band, which is in fact a child's school Alice band, to try to emulate her and keep the frizz at bay.  I hope she noticed and liked me more for it.

I don't know if she was just being kind, but during this 3.47miles of death, The Hare also stopped a number of times 'to stretch'.  Really, she just didn't want to be the one held accountable for me if I were to fall, twitching into the road, and so thought she'd keep a keen eye on me.  When we reached the home straight, I gallantly gasped, 'It's fine!  Go on without me!' adding breathlessly, 'just... different... paces...' to try and maintain an outward projection of dignity.  As if I had planned to be running this slowly all along.  At this point, The Hare sprinted off quite happily back to our air-conditioned gym.

I arrived, some three hours later, feeling actually quite proud of my achievement through the stabbing pains in my lungs and stomach: it was hot, yet I had run.  There was a loop, and I had completed it.  I could have given up, but I didn't.  It was slightly depressing, therefore, when I was greeted with this:

Please note the coconut from which The Hare drinks: the service in our gym is not fast.  It would have taken her a good eight to ten minutes to sort herself out with one of these.

I, on the other hand, was left to gasp desperately at the ice water that the establishment gracefully provide for those who cannot articulate anything more advanced due to fatigue, exhaustion and sweat.  I looked something like this:

Do you like my Alice band?

I may actually, genuinely die in Angkor Wat.

In other news, I am becoming a whizz on Little Moto.  Apart from today after school, I got myself stuck in the bike shed because I'd parked in a tight spot and then been parked in either side and couldn't wheel it out to turn it around.  After hefting and heaving, staining my trousers (the ones that had blue dye bleed into them last week) with oil, pushing another person's bike over and picking it up again in a panic, I had to admit defeat and, hands on hips, simply stared, perplexed at the situation until a tall, delightful science teacher came out of the school building.

Me: (bleating) Um... One Who Has Slight Resemblance to Eddie Redmayne, my bike is stuck.

OWHSRtER: Oh.  Is it?

Me: I don't know what to do.

OWHSRtER: (awkwardly) Er... it's been packed in by those other bikes, hasn't it?

Me: Yes.  Can you help me?

OWHSRtER: (mutely moves the other bikes and wheels my bike out for me)

Me: (meekly) Thank you.

OWHSRtER: (in a simple manner) That was quite funny, wasn't it?

Hahahahaha!  I honestly do think that other people are far weirder and more amusing than I am.

So.  I'm afraid it's just daily Saigon Life Anecdotes until next weekend when I go to Nachang.  I hope nobody minds essentially reading my odd little mind until a more interesting story comes up.

Ooh, today I saw a man riding a moped with one hand, and holding a small dog with the other.  Even the dogs are sensible in Vietnam.  I bet a British dog would have struggled, caused the man to crash his moped, jumped away from the accident scene only to be smushed by another passing moped.  Not in Vietnam.  In Vietnam the dogs know where it's at.