Longest Run Yet

Tonight was another milestone in my new running program. Travis and I went for what I thought was going to be a good solid 5k run in the cool, rainy, October evening. Little did I know, Travis had other plans. We usually run in a cemetary near his house. It's nice because obviously it's quiet, no cars trying to run you over, and we can run next to each other as opposed to a narrow sidewalk. Well tonight as we approached the cemetary, Travis just kept running past it. He said you can't go in after dark, but we had a good 45 minutes before that happened. But then he backed that up with something about zombies, vampires and such since it is getting close to Halloween. I couldn't argue with that. So we kept running past it. Soon I realized what he had planned. Not far from the ghostyard is the road that goes to Whispering Creek, a nice golf course in the area. This road is nothing but big hills. I was hesitant and not sure I could handle what was ahead of us. He said they weren't that bad and we just had to run to this stop sign, as if it was just up the street. That stop sign was far from right up the road. And you have to run up a big hill to get there. This was getting worse as we went. But we kept going. He is quite the motivator. I told him I wanted to stop at the sign and catch my breath. He said I could just catch it on my way back down the hill. So I just kept going. Of course we have to go back up a big hill to get back off that street to head home. Again I just wanted to make it up that hill and call it good. No such luck. "You'll regret it if you stop now. The hard part is over. It's flat from here home." So on we went. Then it was, "What if you ran really hard for the last 250 yards and if you did, Barry Sanders would come back to the NFL and break Emmit Smith's rushing record, would you do it?" So I pushed as hard as I could. The only discouraging part was the fact that as I'm going as hard as I can, Travis has turned around and is running backwards. Needless to say, I didn't have much left in the tank. But I made it all the way back without stopping once and I feel great about it. Thanks, Travis!