Rita Cognion Tried to Kill Me

First it was Jarrett going up the hill... Rita and Sharyn wisely hung back, letting us guys battle it out. But then at the top, I unwisely waited for Rita as the other two peeled off to where their cars were parked. Jarrett and Sharyn would meet us for breakfast, but Rita and I had another mile to run.

at Beach Bums

And run we did. This final ninth mile of our point-to-point Sunday morning sojourn would get a wee bit competitive. Rita kept pulling ahead, but I generally managed to keep reeling her back in, most of the way. We came to our end point at Maalaea Harbor with a final downhill mile of 7:45. That's pretty darn fast for me these days, and it was far and away the fastest mile of the day.

The second time Rita tried to kill me was a few minutes later in the parking lot. The peer pressure got to me - I had to try to match her with three one-minute planks. I somehow met that challenge too. Barely.

I met up with Rita for a couple other runs as well. During one very early morning encounter, I had no sooner mentioned that I don't like to run on sidewalks in the dark, when she goes as far as to trip and fall on one, just to prove me right. So here was an instance of Rita trying to kill me by falling down herself. Incidentally, she bounced right back up, and was fine.

Even at that, Rita still wasn't through with me. After a Wednesday evening group run she tried to kill me by beer at Pizza Madness. Someone had to try to keep up with her.

And finally there was the Lahaina Pali hike. After shuttling the cars to have one at the start and the finish, she tried to kill both me and Debbie on that tough, extremely windy trail.

For more on Maui Meandering, click here.

And for more on the Maui trip in general, including some photos, click here.