A Team Ragfield Event

Rob and I ran the Twin City Twosome yesterday. It’s a 5K relay race, in which each partner does the 5K and your finishing time is the total time for both participants. Rob and I have never done the Twin City Twosome before because it always seems to be held on Mother’s Day weekend, when we usually go visit my parents in P-town and run the Race for the Cure. But this year we were staying in Urbana and decided to give it a try. It was a little bittersweet I suppose, because back in the day (i.e., pre-pregnancy), we could have probably won the husband-wife division. All things considered, this year I was just hoping to be able to finish the 5K without having to stop and walk. Or puke.

Yesterday morning Rob and I headed over to Crystal Lake Park and got ourselves signed up for the race. We decided that I would be the first runner, so I held onto the tongue depressor they gave us that served as the relay stick. At the start line, I positioned myself way in the back, assuming that I would be running really slow. But when the race finally began, I was so far back and crowded by so many people that I felt like I was shuffling and constantly dodging even slower runners for at least ¾ of a mile. Finally it thinned out enough that I felt like I could breathe, and I cruised along very easily at about 9-minute pace. The loop at the park is around 1.5 miles, so for the 5K, we ran the loop twice. That was really great, because I got to see Rob again after the first loop, as I passed the start line/exchange point. Also, a lot of the race volunteers were people we knew from the running club, so it seemed like every little bit there was someone shouting, “Go Melissa!!” Before I knew it, I was finishing up the second loop, and I handed off the tongue depressor to Rob. By my watch, my finishing time was 26:55, which is probably faster than I should have run it. I’d been thinking that 30 minutes would be reasonable, but the 9-minute pace had really been pretty easy for me. The weather was cool and windy, so I definitely wasn’t overheated (didn’t even break a sweat). I had a brief moment of paranoia when I was afraid I’d run too fast for Fig, but I calmed myself down by reasoning that if Fig had been in distress, surely I would have felt some kind of ill-effect. I guess it’s all relative though. My finishing time was probably around 5 full minutes slower than what would have been an all-out effort for me in a non-pregnant condition, so this was definitely taking it down a few notches.

After my brief paranoia passed, I began mentally calculating and realized that if Rob ran about an 18 minute 5K (something he’s definitely capable of), our summed finishing time would be in the realm of 45 minutes. As he finished the first lap, he was right on target. He powered through the second lap and crossed the finish line in something like 45:20. Not too shabby for Team Ragfield! It ended up being good enough for 3rd place in the husband-wife division. And as Rob later quipped… definitely good enough for a first place in the husband-and-6-month-pregnant-wife division. I was very proud of all 3 of us.

Thanks for reading.