There is an infinite amount of stories around us.
Washington DC Marathon
In the first grade, I fell in love with space. The sun, the stars, the planets, I couldn’t get enough of it. Whether this developed from a deep-rooted curiosity within or because I had just watched Star Wars is unclear, but I became obsessed as only a nine-year-old boy could be. I demanded books on astronomy. I terrorised my parents with my questions on the planets. I stood out in the grass once and even tried to count all the stars. Like a Taylor Swift fan, I was hooked and I wasn't letting go.
As it turned out, I was not alone. In fact, my school had come across so many other kids my age suffering from the same post-Skywalker affliction that they set up a small program to accommodate. They called it "Space School with Dr George". Once per week on a Wednesday before class, a retired astronomer was invited to come along and explain to us the universe.
My parents signed me up straight away.
It sounded like quite the challenge for old Dr George. After all, how does one explain something so complicated to a class of children who can't even spell "astronomy"? Any adult would know that the poor old man was doomed from the start, and I have no doubt now that the teachers had bets on how long he would last. Yet, remarkably, Dr George pulled off the impossible. He held our attention. He told the stories of the universe in a way that captivated us. He taught the solar system, the planets within, what they were made of, and how large they truly were. Then he took us further out, introducing us to the stars and galaxies; nebulas and supernovas; the big bang and the coming end of time.
But out of everything Dr George taught, there was nothing more remarkable than learning just how large the universe is, and how small we are in it.
“Infinite” is an easy word to say, but a difficult one to understand. It is the biggest thing imaginable, and yet is so unimaginable. We used to think that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth, yet even this is underwhelming. In fact, there are ten thousand stars per grain of sand on Earth. Our own solar system, revolving around just one of these (our sun) is but a speck in the Milky Way, yet there over 285 galaxies per person living on Earth. Our galaxy is so big that when it collides with the Andromeda galaxy in four billion years, nothing will hit each other, and it will all just pass through and intertwine through gravity. Such is the vastness of the space between stars.
When we heard this all from Dr George, we all felt like just a grain of sand. We were the smallest thing in the universe, and there was so much more happening around us than we could ever truly understand.
Amazingly, this was a lesson I learned again decades later when I ran my sixth marathon in the United States of America.
The Land of the Free
Washington DC shoulders a heavy burden. To quote Hamilton, it's where the sausage gets made to run one of the most powerful countries on Earth. Deals done here affect billions of people around the world, and many argue it is one of the most, if not the most, important cities on the planet. Yet despite its power, Washington DC remains a territory, not a state, and lacks full political representation. Its residents may have a delegate in the House of Representatives, but they cannot vote on matters that affect them, which to this day remains as one of many head-scratching obstacles that the country puts in place for itself and its people.
But I was not here to get involved in politics. I was here to run.
I was excited to get moving. This would be the first American marathon of the Hundred City Run. After my mammoth attempt to run three marathons in 18 days across Australia and New Zealand, I had needed some time for recovery and training so I was fresh and ready to go again. The city looked clean and historic, abundant with old buildings that I recognised from more TV dramas, comedies and cop shows than I could remember. The roads were wide, the tourists were numerous, and there were American flags absolutely everywhere.
I commenced my run with laps of the National Mall, heading down past the White House and entering the district at the Veterans Memorial. I circled around the giant imposing, seated figure of the Lincoln Memorial and phallic Washington Monument, totally drawn in by their size and scale. My heart raced, not from the run but from the excitement of the moment, capitvated by the grand manuments to a history that shaped the world as we know it today.
In the crisp morning air, I was almost entirely alone in the park.
The kilometres flew by.
Eventually I peeled away and headed along the river up to the old city of Georgetown, turning around at the base of the hills and history. I forced down a couple of the gels that I hated as I reached the half-marathon mark, and when sailed through into the second half I could feel the benefit of the recovery and training since my waddling in Auckland. My legs felt ready for more, and I sailed through with optimism into the second half.
But I was unprepared for what was to come next.
The Home of the Brave
I returned back to the Mall and turned over the bridge into Virginia, up and down the main roads adjacent to Port Arlington Cemetery. I was turning back towards the bridge when around the corner emerged an entire troupe of military recruits, four-or-five abreast, carrying weights and running the other way. Passing them I heard the heavy grunts of effort, saw the grimaces on their face, the focus and determination to get through the next session. Suddenly my own fatigue felt small and petty. These recruits were around my same age, or more likely younger, and while I trained for adventure, they trained for defence.
My own marathon started to take a back seat in my mind.
I continued back over into DC again, passing more recruits training around the green parks. Alongside them, on the walking paths, I also saw older, retired veterans. They walked, or were pushed, alongside the monuments and memorials. Some of them were in uniform, medals stamped on their chests. They moved slowly in deep reflection, and I came to sense that like each stomp of my foot, every medal had a story: a past that I was completely ignorant to.
Down by the Jefferson Monument and back up towards Capitol Hill, my final ten kilometres were the most confronting of all. I heard them from a kilometre away first – loud chants and songs – and then saw them on the grounds before Capitol Hill: a gathering of thousands to protest and condemn the rampant Fentanyl abuse. Large posters had been made up, printing the names and faces of those that had been lost to the preventable scourge of prescription drug addiction that ravaged America.
They had gathered to Washington DC, for here were the ones that could fix it, yet on the problem continued.
I was humbled in the last pieces of the marathon. While I pained through the fatigue and exhaustion, it felt small compared to what was around me. There were histories, stories, hardships all around. There was a lot more beneath the surface here than the roads, tourists and flags. There was a soul here, and a story far greater than my marathon. I was running through America’s heart, and with each kilometre I was seeing a little more. Like it had in Dr George’s class, my mind was opening to a new universe, and it, too, was massive.
Around four hours after I started, I ended time on the watch, feeling in my gut that perhaps I had travelled a bit further than the 42.2 kilometres that my watch face was suggesting.
Reflection
Just as I was in Dr George's class, in Washington DC I was a grain of sand once again. I was small. I was insignificant. I was a speck in the expanse of stories that exist today in Washington's capital. That day my marathon barely mattered. There were so many grander things that happened, were happening, and will happen in the future.
On the faces of military recruits, sweating and pushing under the sun, I saw an underlying culture of purpose. They lived and trained themselves to be ready to fight for a country they held dear. They would be there again tomorrow, and the day after, and they day after that, long after I flew out of it.
On the faces of veterans walking around the memorials, I saw people that had their lives defined by the decisions made in the buildings just yards away. Many travelled there from across the country to pay respects to those that fell in wartime, a past never forgotten, deep rooted in the city soil.
On the faces of the protestors I saw frustration, and anger, at a system that had failed so many of the country’s citizens through drugs far too accessible. I saw entire lives revolving around the pursuit of a justice out of reach.
I came to Washington DC to experience the city, but I left it realising I have only seen the smallest snapshot of an infinite galaxy around us. Dr George may not be around any more, but his lesson was everlasting.
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