Further Recovery

Recovery workouts continue.
Wednesday was a rest day. Thursday I decided to test the legs again.
With one mile warmup, I started into a planned 8 miles, at roughly a tempo pace ( for my current state) which was to be 6:50. It all started easy enough and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it felt. This surprise did not last very long. After 3 tempo miles, the pace became a lot tougher.
By the time I hit 6 miles, the effort was more of a 10k effort pace, and I almost finished there. However, I was determined to push it out, and while the last mile was a struggle to stay on pace, I finished the full 8 at the planned pace, for a small cool down with just about 9.5 miles.
I was pleased that I managed to finish, but disappointed at how hard the effort was towards the end.
On Friday, I went out for an easy 6 miles. Within the first mile I started to get a sharp pain in my knee, which quickly spread to my hamstring.
I could have turned around, but I was curious to see how it would develop, or disappear. After 3 miles, while the pain had subsided, it was definitely much better. At the end, it was still there and I was glad to finish. I spent a good while stretching out the hamstring trying to work out the pain.
I also self massaged the leg over the next day, and didn't run on Saturday. I think it may be my legs telling me that I was trying to run too hard too fast.
Today was long run day. I have been doing a little bit of reading lately, and I am going to try and mix it up a bit with these. As I was still in recovery mode, I just ran easy, no faster than 7:37, and many towards the 8 minute mile pace. The route was also quite hilly. Another addition, is that I am going to start experimenting with using energy gels. Today I used cliff shots, one at every 4 miles with some water, and they had no adverse effect. I probably didn't push myself hard enough to see any benefit from them, and i finished 16 miles at 2:05, quite an easy pace. But I didn't feel in the least bit nauseous afterwards, which is the very first time I haven't. It will be interesting to see when I get back to the 20 mile runs if I can utilise them and see any benefits.
Every week will have at least one 2 hour run from now on (hopefully).
The legs were quite tired at the end of the run, if I had a flat road ahead I could have kept going, but I couldn't face any more hills at that point.
49 miles for the week was a pretty good result I think, three weeks tomorrow after Boston.
That's by far the most miles I have run so soon after a marathon, and I hope puts me in good shape to start pushing a bit harder soon enough.