Race taper: winding down before winding up

Yesterday's run (Central Park): 3.15 miles
Today's run (Street): 2.5 miles

My experiment with more moderate paces on a taper week continued this morning with a run that toggled between an easy and a mildly challenging pace. My intention was to do the whole run slow to allow for continued muscle recovery but a little voice kept prompting me to pick up the pace for short distances. It ultimately turned out to be a tempo run but my tempo that was closer to andantino than allegro.

Yesterday I ran with JQ at lunchtime in Central Park. Conditions were ideal, sunny and cool with occasional breezes. We did our usual loop and covered a range of topics as we made our way around. We came by the location of the NYC Marathon finish and I saw that they still hadn't broken down the spectator stands or cleared out a lot of the signage. Both today's and yesterday's runs felt good and I'm hoping that this strategy won't soften me up too much to be competitive on Sunday. It's been a while since I've done a run with any intensity. I'll know this weekend how well this method works.