Sibling Rivalry

The great thing about coming from a big family is when you get together, everyone's kids can occupy each other and leave most of their parents free to relax or challenge each other to fun stuff like running in the heat of the evening until you puke. My oldest brother begged off running since the concrete streets around my other brother's house would hurt his knees. (waaaah!) My other brother said he'd die if he ran, or at least sweat. (waaaah!)

That left my sister and I to hit the pavement. She wants to do a half-marathon in November so she'd been doing a little running lately too. I let her set the pace, and luckily it was comfortable so we chatted back and forth until we hit the first hill. Halfway up she was reliving the ice cream we'd just eaten so we walked the hill and then did another lap of the neighborhood. She begged me to stop telling jokes so that she could breath and I decided to be nice and comply. We filled the time with bits of running advice we'd gotten from concerned friends about the right clothes to wear and how to hydrate properly. After two laps she was fading and decided to walk one while I ran ahead. On my last lap I decided to run it backwards so I could check up on her (partly to make sure she didn't fall over dead and partly to make sure she didn't just wimp out and cut it short ;-). When I caught her she'd just finished walking the big hill and was ready to run again. Unfortunately for me she was feeling good and ready to really push it to the finish and started to leave me in the dust. So I did what any good brother would do...told jokes until she cracked. "Last one home has bloody nipples!" got me to the front door first.