Trundle is not quite the right word. When I hear trundle, I think of layers, of wool and dampness, of hitting the road before the sun does, wrapped in a blanket and uncaffeinated haze. One cannot trundle in the summer, and so this morning we did not so much trundle as we did shuffle our way to the car: Haley and I sporting matching pairs of sunken eyelids and cans of Celsius that could not kick in soon enough; my mother, gracious as ever, bright-eyed and cheery at 6:00am, and Lucy, still wearing her pajama onesies, awake but not quite conscious, confused but thrilled (as she always is) to be involved. And off we went to Ashland — not a far drive at all, maybe twenty minutes from Richmond. Ashland is a lovely and small town known for the following items: a train station, a sniper attack, a very pretty college campus, a strawberry festival, and a half marathon / 5K.
That last item is the source of our 5am alarm clock. We ran the Ashland 5K two years ago, the weekend before our wedding; we would have run it last year, but Haley was deep into her third trimester.
We get there; we park; we make our way to the packet pickup tent. To give you a sense of the size [or lack thereof] of this race, it is such that we can arrive ten minutes before the race begins, grab our bibs, and still have time left over to stretch and enjoy the sun slowly coming over the quiet environs. Lucy is captivated by the novelty and the relative chaos; she is not sure what’s going on, but she is delighted all the same.
It is very quickly clear that the weather will be perfect for a morning run, a welcome change: it’s been unbearably (though not uncharacteristically) gross in Virginia this year, hot and still and sticky, but this morning it is crisp. We’ve got fresh legs, though too fresh at that: the last time we ran was a 10K a few months back, which itself was the last time we ran since Lucy was born. And, as such, the race proceeds: it’s a very forgiving route, flat and calm, and our pace is a slow and steady jog, neither impressive nor unpleasant.
Time passes. My left knee twinges, as it is oft to do; I shift from listening to Charly Bliss to Navy Blue, and then toss my AirPods in my pocket. We hit the three mile mark; the end is upon us. We turn right onto the main stretch of road that cuts through Ashland, sitting parallel to the train track, and immediately we start to hear the generic “you have finished the race” Top 40 playlist and a guy on P.A. shouting out the half-marathon finishers (who, frankly, deserve the praise more than us). With one difference: my mother and Lucy, rather than waiting at the finish line, have camped out at the bend, and with a smile and nod I stop, pick up Lucy and begin running again — because, after all, it is her race too.
Haley, Lucy and I all cross the finish line, hand in hand in hand. Lucy is, as always, jostled and deliriously happy.
Strava gently informs me that it was my worst 5K pace in quite a few years; I gently inform it back that Lucy just set a new PR, and she’s only going to get faster from here on out.
