2 Hour Volume Run

My whole life Pilot Hill has been looming in the distance. From the days of my young athletic career I had the goal of running to the top. I finally achieved that goal on Sunday! The two hour Zone 1 run I had planned on Sunday was never meant to summit the “hill.” Setting out on 2 hour runs can be a daunting task for me so I figure the best way to ensure that I will run for two hours is to run for an hour from my house. When I hit an hour I’ll turn around and then I’ll be forced to run the two hours whether I want to or not. As it turns out, Laramie isn’t that large and when you run for an hour in one direction you’ll end up out of town and when I’m out of town I run on the dirt roads that litter the perimeter of the city. I hadn’t planned on running the hill climb but when I got to 50 minutes up a dirt road and I noticed how close I was the summit I knew I couldn’t stop so close to my goal. 35 minutes later I got to the top! It wasn’t as great as I had hoped, I just wanted water! Next time I’m going to take a page from coaches’ book and bring a water belt, even though I hate running with one. To add to the blistering heat when I turned around at the summit I saw a thunderstorm coming. Turns out I was the tallest thing within miles and I was six plus miles from home! I won’t say that the return run was anywhere close to Zone 1 but I made it home safe and accomplished one of my life goals. In the end I found my new favorite Sunday Volume run. I’m not sure how long it is from my house, but I used Google Earth and figured out it’s a change of close to 3000 feet in elevation. It’s a great run! If anyone wants to go and you are in town let me know! I hope everyone’s summer training is going well, I know mine is!