94 Ranger clutch cable broke

Hey everyone, I have a '94 Ford Ranger manual trans., and my clutch cable (the one connected to the back of the pedal) just snapped about 2 inches down from the pedal.

Now I'm not a real gearhead or anything, so bear with me if I don't use all the right terminology and such to describe everything.

First of all, is that cable pretty easy to replace? I do have a gearhead friend that can help me and all, so I'm pretty sure we can manage that part.

I guess the more important thing I'm wondering about is what essentially caused it to break. Short story of it, I was driving to pick up some of my friends, everything was like normal, everything shifting how it normally does. Parked my truck and we talked for like 5 minutes.

Got back in my truck to leave, and when I went to press down the clutch pedal, there was tons of resistance and I couldn't push it in at all. And me doing something really stupid without thinking, I kind of just pushed a little bit harder and that's when that cable just snapped. What could cause it to suddenly have that much resistance?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice. Let me know if you need any more info.

Ok, after a bit of research, I think the thing that connects to the clutch pedal is called the push rod (and not a clutch cable)?

Is the pushrod able to be replaced separately from the entire master cylinder?