Well as we continue to catch up on how 2023 has been going we hit August. The month kicked off with the Natal Day Race in Dartmouth. Once again I chose the 6 Mile option, which is a three lap event. A perfect weather day was ours for the start. I had been lucky enough to secure an elite start Bib which allowed me to start up front. Ultimately my goal was to pace myself well and not really race others, but being able to run with the fast group for as long as possible certainly would be a benefit.
From the start we took off at a decent pace. The course has a slight downhill start, then a climb, log downhill run, and finally a big up hill finish. I held back a bit on Lap 1, got up to pace buy the end and held through Lap 2, which brought me right on the tail of some other 6 Mile runners for Lap 3. I passed 4 others on that lap, and held on for a fourth in Age Group finish and the same avg pace as the previous year of 3:37 min/km. That was good in that last year they shortened the lap length due to some road construction.
The Natal Day race was the only official race I did in August, focusing instead on a Provincial Tour of parkruns on my way to reach the 100 run milestone before the end of the year. From the Truro Victoria Park parkrun's 50th event:
Outside of parkrunning this month, I started to really ramp up the long runs as I started to aim for a Fall long race. I really wanted to push my limits this month and see how the body would hold up. Turns out, not too bad.
