ONE NICE THING ABOUT THIS HOT WEATHER is that it’s made me slow down. Last Tuesday I went out for a tempo run – 7 miles total, with 4 miles around a 7:20 pace. Normally no big deal, it sucked me dry this time. How bad was it? I stopped at Meijer near the end of the run – and paid for a bottle of water. So when Coach Marie assigned me 13 miles on Saturday morning, with the admonition, “Slow it down a bit,” I was only too happy to comply. (A 9:05 average pace. She was so proud of me.)

My training this week also included Aikido on Monday, gym workout on Thursday (not air-conditioned), bike rides Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon (around 90 miles total) and Sunday’s 5-mile recovery run. Sweaty? Yup. Buckets of it. But after that long winter, I’m hardly going to complain. Besides, it’s a good excuse to drink lots of iced coffee and Arnold Palmers.

What I have found uncomfortable in this weather isn’t the motion, it’s the standing around. I wound through the Art Fair twice on Saturday, during the PR Fitness morning run and returning from a bike ride to Dundee in the afternoon. The crowd shambling along the lines of booths could have been auditioning for Late Afternoon of the Living Dead. I felt so sorry for them. But then I saw something pretty unbelievable tooling down the sidewalk.

If you’re at all familiar with the comic strip “B.C.” you know about their transportation device. I’d always thought that would be a great way to get around – something small and portable that could cover a lot of ground. And now, here it is. The couple here raved about them. They told me it weighs about 23 pounds, charges in about two hours, and has a range of about 10 miles. The only downside? They’re a tad pricey (click here to see the Amazon.com price).

So along with the Dick Tracy two-way wrist radio, another comic strip fantasy device comes to reality. How long before we see the Hoverboard?