Marine Corps Marathon 2008 / DC Vacation

Our weeklong trip to Washington DC made me feel like a tiny speck within humanity. It started with the marathon with a combined participation of nearly 30,000 runners in both the marathon and 10K offered that day. Steve and I ran in a crowd for the first 21 miles and only then did it thin out so we had some running room and could anticipate when slower runners were ahead without running into them or having to veer off quickly to avoid collision. Michelle had a great run and describes her marathon here.

Mad Monkey #1 (Steve) and Mad Monkey #2 (me) maintained our “A” plan well with a desired goal of 3:40 to 3:50. Had we not added three tenths of a mile to the course by not cutting every corner we would have come in right on A plan but due to the added distance we ended up with 3:41: and change.

Washington DC has a lot to offer in the form of history and starting with the Portrait Museum and going full circle to all the Smithsonian offerings, the Library of Congress, Aerospace Museum, Native American Museum, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, FDR Memorial, Korean War Memorial, WWI Memorial, WWII Memorial, and the list goes on. All this resulted in achieving the feeling of running a marathon a day for a full week.

One poem that was on the wall of the Holocaust Memorial just as you exit stands out in my memory. Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote it.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
after all I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
after all I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
after all I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.


I’ll leave you with some pictures I took during the trip.