Running to Every Metro Terminus Showed This DC Runner a City He Didn't Know

Harrison White wasn't trying to do something epic. He was just trying to get his long runs in.

The Logan Circle resident had signed up for the Baltimore Marathon last year and was looking for interesting ways to rack up miles. He'd ridden his bike to Baltimore before, remembered passing trails near the WMATA Green Line on the way out of the city, and thought: what if he just ran to the end of the line and took the Metro home?

He mapped a route to Greenbelt on Strava, ran about 21 miles, and filed it away. Then the marathon came and went, and the itch came back.

"I was really enamored with the idea of a one-way run," he said. "My favorite thing is getting to experience and see the city on foot. And I was like, should I just do this for every Metro terminus stop?"

So he did.

Over roughly six months, September 2025 through March 2026, Harrison ran from his apartment to all 10 Metrorail terminus stations. Mileage ranged from 15 to 20 miles per run depending on the line, with Ashburn, the end of the Silver Line, clocking in around 34. He wasn't just picking the most direct route. He'd study heat maps on Strava, looking for trails other people had actually run, and string them together into something worth doing.

"My goal was to maximize having an enjoyable run and being on good trails," he said. "I was taking routes that other people had created and known, but stringing them together to get to those stations."

Vienna and Ashburn were straightforward. The W&OD Trail basically does the work for you. Glenmont was a favorite: up through Rock Creek, through Silver Spring, onto Sligo Creek Trail for the final stretch. "I'd never been on Sligo Creek before," he said. "It was really nice, a cool area I definitely hadn't known about before the project."

Then there was Branch Avenue.

"Branch Avenue was really tough," he said. "I learned my lesson about the lack of pedestrian infrastructure going out there. I was running along this road and all of a sudden it just turned into a highway with an elevated bridge and no sidewalk at all." He ended up cutting through parking lots and an undeveloped wooded area just to close the last mile to the station. "It was wild."

Largo and New Carrollton weren't much better for trails, but Harrison navigated surface roads, including a late-night loop past Northwest Stadium, home to the Washington Commanders, empty and lit up. He described it as "a great liminal space."

Southeast DC was the biggest surprise of the project. He'd spent little time east of the river before, and running to Branch Avenue opened up parts of the city he hadn't seen. He spotted murals and street art, and the Marvin Gaye Trail out toward Largo caught him off guard. "I was like, this is a thing? That was really cool."

He knocked out eight of the 10 stations by December, then a winter snowstorm put things on pause. Once the trails cleared, he finished the final two. Ashburn, at 34 miles, he called "basically an unsupported 50K."

"There was just such a sense of adventure to it," he said.

When it was over, he took the Metro home, grabbed a sandwich from Jersey Mike's, and watched a movie. "I was so beat I didn't really want to do anything."

He's already thinking bigger. A route from the Washington Monument in D.C. to the Washington Monument in Baltimore, about 55 miles, is rattling around in his head. "I still really like the idea," he said. "We'll see if it happens."

"I can't recommend it enough," he said. "It was a really cool way to see the city."