When my sister-in-law Cindy asked if I wanted to do a 5k this morning with a group from her gym, it sounded like a good idea.

I ran cross country and track through high school and college, and it became a huge part of my identity. I have kept running since then, but joint pain has slowed me down over the last couple of years. I miss running regularly. Even more, from my team running days, I miss running with a group.

I found out the run was at 5 a.m. Then, I learned we would need to leave The Compound at 4:45 a.m. to get there. I was awake all night, afraid my alarm wouldn’t go off. The three little boys all kept me company at one point or another, which didn’t help. Finally, after feeding the baby, it was 4:20 and I decided to just get up and get ready.

We drove over to the gym in the dark to meet the other runners. There were 15 of us, and before we left, a personal trainer gave us a pep talk and told us our route. It was a flat route today, an easy run, he told us. He took a group photo and we all took off.

I pulled ahead to the back of the first third of runners, which is my sweet spot. I paced myself by a strong woman in front of me who was keeping a steady pace. Then, she warmed up and left me to the hills.

Tobago is a mountainous island. There are a few flat areas near the coast and by the airport, but for the most part, the roads roll and twist over hills. Between the heat and the hills, I’ve found runs here tend to feel like twice their actual distance because of the effort they require.

When the personal trainer told us it was a flat course, I chose to believe him because I needed to. As the run took us up and down hills through the darkness as roosters crowed and birds chirped, I kept sight of a couple of runners ahead of me so I wouldn’t get lost. We were running through an area that was familiar to me; I have run or ridden in a car through all of it at one time or another. But my sense of direction is terrible, and I knew if I lost the other runners, I was toast.

It’s unfortunate that the run took us past the turn-off to The Compound, but I stayed strong. Later, I was truly ready to quit, sure that the distance was wrong even taking the difficulty of the hills into account. Then I saw ahead of me a familiar landmark that told me we were just around the corner from the gym.

I gutted it out for a strong finish, then stretched and sat on some cement stairs outside the gym next to grass mixed with thyme, the scent familiar and earthy.

When the personal trainer gave us the rundown when everyone got back, he told us we’d done 6.62k. If you’re in the U.S., that’s just over 4.1 miles. A 5k would have been 3.1 miles.

I should have known it wasn’t going to be easy, but I’m glad I didn’t. I got out there and ran further than I ever have on a visit here, and got to run with a group for the first time in years. I may not be able to walk tomorrow, but for now I’m going to enjoy the high.