Getting ready for Nationals

OK, this is not a track or trail, but it is some really good exercise to get the hips, legs and back ready to run fast.  I have found that heavy lifting and really intense hard work has made my core much stronger and thus I feel  faster.
  We have a piece of real estate called the "Peninsula" that is cut off from our main yard by two streams.   I wanted to have easy access to this little piece (1/4 acre) with the garden tractor without going through the bigger stream.   During the winter I cut down two very large Osage orange or "hedge apple" trees, and those trees were my construction materials.    Osage Orange is incredibly dense wood,   rot resistant for decades, and overall very hard to split and move.  So, I thought I would build a bridge over the "Troubled Waters" and make access much easier.   And I did.    I had two logs that I split with wedges, an 8 pound sledge, axe and chain saw.   I also had a come along to move them--they were very heavy and beyond my capability to pick up even one end... So, over two days and four outfits, gallons of water and a lot of Gatorade, I got the pieces into place and a primitive bridge did appear.   I still need to chain the 4 pieces together and to a near by tree.  During heavy rains, flash flooding will cover this area and I do not want to loose my engineering feat.  

Last weekend I did not run, I had run several days in a row and needed to rest my feet a little and this "bull work project" was my exercise.  It was effective.   I ran last night at the local high school track in Memphis.  It was only a warm night and I wanted to do some 50 meters to get a feel for speed and pain progress with the left leg.   I also wanted to work on "pace" for 400 meters  by getting the correct stride speed over 50 meters and then equating to the 400.  I will need to do a 7.5 second 50 meters to make a 60 second 400 meters.    So, what did the bridge work weekend do for speed?   

I ran several passes at speed--running start--with sub seven seconds achievable.  I was working hard on making my 'long stride' work, it is when I can put my body in cruise and cover a lot of ground in very little strides--it takes power to pull off but it is my best way to win.   I made some great progress and my confidence for the 50 m is quite high right now.   I ran one pass with the first 25 meters at pace and the second 25 at "let it rip".  This is the first full tilt in several weeks--only 25 meters but still all out.   I ran a 6.30 second pass, which felt great and that puts my 50 meters time in the low 7's when you factor in the start from blocks, which might get me into the finals.  My 200 can be in the 27 to 28 second range and the 400m is hard to predict.  I still am suffering from lack of confidence for the 400 m and I will continue to work on that problem--I have about a week to get it done.