Yesterday I drove to Ravens Stadium in Baltimore to pick up Ray's and my race packets and numbers for tomorrow's Baltimore Marathon.
Wow!
Everywhere you looked, there were reminders of how huge this event is. The stadium is huge; it will serve and the starting and finish line. As I stood in line there to pick up our packets, I was flanked by thousands of other runners; over 20,000 will race on Saturday. When I got to the front of the line, I met with one of thousands of volunteers, who reached over to one of thousands and thousands of boxes and pulled out packets for Ray and me. And all of those thousands and thousands of people were eager, excited, and full of nerves. It was intense!
I got a huge knot in my gut. This is so different from how I usually run, I thought. Will I be able to focus on my goals for this race? Will I be able to relax, shut out all of the overstimulation, and make it a good run?
Then I remembered the 1986 basketball movie Hoosiers. It's about a small town Indiana basketball team that makes it to the state championships - remember? (The team's Coach Dale is played by Gene Hackman.) When the team arrives at the imposing sports complex where the championship will be held, Coach Dale gets out a tape measure and has them measure the basketball court to show them that it's the exact same size as the one back home.
Munda lived that way; he was the same in every situation, and everyone "knew the same Munda." And he did well in everything. He had that kind of integrity.
So instead of thinking about all of those runners, I'm going to think of Munda's example.
