National Marathon taper week 1 of 3

The week of training at an elevated pace relative to my previous weeks are making me feel ready to run hard. The 8 mile marathon pace run today felt easy and I am happy to see a significant negative split even though it was a positive elevation gain on the way home. The splits were (distance, pace, elevation gain):

• Mile 1 - 8:28 - 32 ft
• Mile 2 - 8:30 - 43 ft
• Mile 3 - 8:26 - 0 ft
• Mile 4 - 8:26 - 12 ft
• Mile 5 - 8:18 - 61 ft
• Mile 6 - 8:21 - 63 ft
• Mile 7 - 7:46 - 0 ft
• Mile 8 - 7:33 - 14 ft
• Last .78 Mile - 7:23 - 23 ft

The first of three weeks of taper ended with 28.29 miles with an average pace of 8:13, which is faster than my expected marathon pace. I did 3 quality runs and one recovery run, skipping two recovery runs on Wednesday and Friday. I feel really fit right now, I just need to focus on keeping the muscle tension balance through quality workouts, diet, and sleep. I am prepared for the marathon and am now just thinking about running fast in some May 5Ks.