A Week without Pain

I had 3 runs this week and no pain in my left calf.  I don't know what it was, but I hope it has passed for good.

I am really surprised because we ran 3 x 4 x 400m on Tuesday.  I was sure that I was going to hurt halfway through the workout and the only pain was the burning in my thighs and lungs exacted from the track.  I remember the first set:  1:29, 1:30, 1:28, 1:26.  It wasn't my best work, but we had 2 more sets after that.  I kept all of the second set at 1:29's and 1:30's.  The third set, I ran 1:33's and 1:37's.

Thursday's workout was an easy 4.25 mile run.  I didn't stretch before or after, but I also didn't push myself that hard.  Again, no pain.

Today, I went down to the Disney / ESPN Wide World of Sports to check out the Disney Health and Fitness Expo.  It was being held for the Disney Marathon and Half Marathon.  There was a constant flow of people in and out, because it was packet pick-up for tomorrow's marathon.  I have never been to Wide World of Sports. It was a really nice facility.  They had all kinds of fields and at one end of the complex there was a track.  I went to the track and it was the nice soft spongy kind.  A sign said that there was a cross country path behind it in the woods.  That's where I went.  I don't think it is open to the public every day, because there is a gate.  After running around back in the woods though, I found that some of the path leads out to the main road.  I had no idea where I was going, because there was no map or signs.  It wasn't exactly a looped path either, but I just tried to remember what paths I was on.  There were a few workers out there driving carts and a security patrol passed me a couple times, so it was definitely safe.  I didn't see any animals, but I did notice deer tracks in different places.  That was cool.  I am not sure how much ground I covered, but I ran exactly an hour.  I think I covered around 6 miles or slightly more.  It's hard to tell when you are running on trails.  Speaking of the trails, it was a mix bag of sand, low pile grass, dirt, and a couple patches of gravel.

After finishing up my run, I cooled off in the shade near the expo.  I went inside and got a Powerade and a vegetable soup.  I didn't even know that ESPN made soup.  It was good, too.

And the reason I went down there today was to meet Arturo Barrios.  He was the 10,000m world record holder when I ran in high school, so I remember reading about him in Runner's World back in the day.  I didn't take my camera with me, so I snagged this off the net.  He was actually wearing an orange shirt like this today, too.