Restless legs and reasonable recovery

 For the first time in a long while I woke up in the middle of the night with a case of the jimmy legs.  I was tightening up everywhere and couldn't get comfortable.  Must be remanence of the 20 miler.  I woke up feeling okay though.  

The weather has taken a turn for the worse and the lows are in the 70s again.  Given my current situation I didn't have great expectations for todays run.  An easy 7 seemed like a reasonable assumption.

I drug ass getting out the door, but once I started running I actually felt pretty good.  After an 7:58 first mile I dropped the pace to 7:26 and 7:22 for the next 2 miles but then slowed back down to 7:35 and 7:40 for mile 4 and 5.  HR was at 147 for all 4 miles so effort was even.  I was surprised at how fast 2 and 3 was and also a bit surprised at how much I slowed down for 4 and 5.  

At mile 6 I intentionally picked up the pace and hit a 7:23.  By now my average pace was at 7:33 so I decided to keep pushing to get the average pace for the entirety of the run down to sub 7:30.   Mile 7 is downhill which helps and I ran 6:58.  At this point I was down to 7:29 pace and I figured I'd go ahead and get another mile to make it a full hour of running.  I was no longer running downhill but it never seems like it matters when I'm milling around the neighborhood tacking on extra mileage.  6:54 for the last mile and then kept going a wee bit farther to make it an hour.

Final Stats:

8.15 miles
1:00:15
7:24 pace 

In some ways 7:24 pace isn't all that fast but I still feel there were a lot of positives to be gained: it was still faster than I've been running for the most part. I was able to push it a bit without working too hard.  I was able to perform on tired legs.  The heat really didn't bother me that much.  This was probably at least approaching my planned marathon effort.

About 4 more weeks of training until taper time.  Man, that's gonna come fast!