I haven’t written about running in a while. The thought struck me while I was, you guessed it, running this morning. There’s good reason for that, though: we’re under a “heat dome” here in the States, which sounds like some sci-fi contraption that focuses stellar energy to fry planets but in reality is just another yawn-snore weather phenomenon that conspires every once in a while to stick us Americans to the car seats even first thing in the morning, to burn out air conditioners with abandon, and to see how many of us will actually utter the phrase “let’s move to Canada” in the space of a week (the over-under has to be a million per city block).

The temperature hasn’t dipped below 74 in over a week, and that looks likely to go right on, so even though I’m back into running before sun-up, there’s no escaping the oppressive heat. It’s just there, waiting for you, like that crazy stalker ex that keeps going through your trash. You know it’s there, the way the mailman knows that slavering dog is hiding in the bushes, just waiting to pounce, or the way that I can turn on the TV in the morning and know that Trump’s campaign manager is gonna be there explaining that the entire country has, once again, “misconstrued” what the candidate (I almost wrote “his client,” as if he’s a beleaguered defense attorney) said.

But that’s life, innit? There’s no telling when the heat will break. But we keep running so that when it does, we’ll be the first to feel it.