CONQUERING THE LOOP

I have conquered the loop. The past two years i've pecnt my time hating every second of the loop, blacking out from my memory the time i spend on the loop, and pretty much just counting down the seconds until it's over. But the other day i ran the loop with my roommate and inspirational running buddy, Darby, and we ran the entire 2.5 miles in 18 minutes and spent the whole time having a full-blown conversation.
The end of the loop caught me by suprise, not because i was out of breath or because my legs hurt, but instead because our conversation was cut off when we realized we couldn't run any further. Instead of feeling happy and kind of excited at the fact that we could run the loop so easily, instead i felt disappointed. I felt like now there was no challenge, nothing to keep me angry and push me to go harder.
Now we have to find a new "loop", or some other longer, harder course to run. We need to find a way to keep us running harder and harder and not getting easier on ourselves because the loop is suddenly a cake walk. The river run may have to be the new loop. I hate the river run.