Day 2 and My Rear Brake is Gone

When I rode my bike home from work on day 1, it was mostly an uphill ride. I knew that riding home would not be as easy,since in the biking world what goes down must come up.. but mother nature decided to kick it up a notch with such strong winds that I found myself having to pedal while going downhill so I would not come to a complete stop. When I shuffled into the house my kids took one look at my red sweaty face and said "I bet you'll be too sore to ride in tomorow".  So the next morning I thought of my kids and their prediction while every muscle in my body was so tired I had to literally roll out of bed to get moving. Needless to say, I did not ride in yesterday.
But today I was ready and there was no wind to fight with. About halfway there,I heard a "zing" sound and saw that my back brake had snapped. Greeeaatt.  I was too far from home to go back so I figured since I still have my front brake I should be OK. If I lost my front brake as well I planned on finding a hill to coast up or a bush to crash into.
There is a really good bike/pedestrian  path that runs along the east side of the river in Harris Park and today I decided to try it. Everyone warned me about the steep hill near the Blackfriar Bridge. I was approaching the hill when a young woman walking her rather large pit bull mix stepped onto the path in front of me. I couldn't pass her since the bikes coming down the hill towards me were going too fast, so I was stuck behind her. When we got to the steep part of the hill, I realized that she was walking faster than I was pedalling and passing her was not really an option.  I found myself laughing, then panting, since laughing when you are already out of breath makes a really odd sound that her dog found disturbing. I pulled over at the top of the hill near the Blackfriar Bridge to catch my breath while she and her athletic dog walked confidently up another hill which I was now dreading. This was the last climb before I would hit level ground and arrive at work and I decided that whoever invented 1st gear was a genius and I love them.