What 26.2 Miles Taught Me About Carrying the Weight
I’m writing this from the couch with my feet propped up high, trying to coax the blood back into legs that feel like solid concrete. Yesterday morning, I lined up with tens of thousands of others and ran the Marine Corps Marathon.
Anyone who has run a marathon knows the physical reality: 26.2 miles is a long, unforgiving distance no matter how many training runs you put in. But MCM hits differently. They call it “The People’s Marathon” because there’s no prize money; elite runners aren’t flying in to chase world records. The people toeing the line are active-duty troops, veterans, Gold Star families, and everyday runners looking to test themselves against the pavement.
For the first ten miles or so, you ride the wave. The morning air is crisp, the crowds through Rosslyn and along the Potomac are loud, and the legs feel light. But eventually, the cheap adrenaline burns away. By mile twelve, the banter quiets down, the pack strings out, and you settle into the mechanical rhythm of your own breathing and the dull, repetitive thud of shoes hitting asphalt.
Then comes mile twelve. You enter East Potomac Park, and the race changes completely.
This is the “Wear Blue Mile.” If you haven’t experienced it, it’s hard to put into words. The cheers stop. The music stops. You enter a long, silent corridor lined on both sides with hundreds of full-sized American flags, each held rigidly in the wind by a volunteer. Nailed to trees and posts along the road are poster after poster displaying the faces of service members killed in action.
You run through that corridor in near-total silence, broken only by the sound of footfalls. I looked at those faces—young men and women, kids really, many from units I know well—and I read their names, their ranks, the dates they gave everything.
In that mile, whatever griping my body was doing about a tight hamstring or hot spot on my foot vanished. It felt petty. You realize you aren’t running for a personal record or a medal. You are running through a formation of the fallen. You keep moving because they can’t.
Coming off the bridge into Virginia around mile twenty, the race turns into a pure fistfight between your ears. Your quads are locked up, your fuel is spent, and the brain starts bargaining. It offers you a dozen reasonable excuses to pull off to the side, stretch, or just walk for a minute. That’s the moment in any race—or any tough season in life—where technique and fitness stop mattering. What takes over is simple, unvarnished discipline: eyes front, pick up the knee, take the next stride.
The finish is downright sadistic. Mile twenty-six dumps you at the base of a steep, winding hill leading directly up to the Iwo Jima Memorial. It’s the last thing your body wants to see. But you claw your way up that asphalt, and right there at the top, beneath that massive bronze flag, a young Marine snaps to attention, salutes, and hangs the medal around your neck.
Sitting here today, bruised and stiff, that final mile sticks with me.
We talk constantly about resilience, leadership, and showing up. Out in the quiet outposts—whether that’s an isolated military unit far from home, a small synagogue trying to scrape together a minyan, or a family dealing with sudden crisis—the work often feels just like those grinding middle miles. There are no cheering crowds. The terrain is flat, lonely, and painful. You wonder if the small, repetitive efforts you make each day actually move the needle.
They do. You don’t cross a finish line in one heroic leap. You get there yard by yard, enduring the ache, honoring the people who paved the road before you, and refusing to quit until the job is done.
