“Standing up in my pedals, I dug so deep to make it to the top of the hill I wasn’t positive that my butt could bear sitting back down on my bike seat when I got to the top,” Hilary Oliver remembers. “I’d hardly said a word to another human being all day, and began to wonder: What the hell was I doing out there, anyway?” Hilary had driven that stretch of asphalt between Fort Collins and Denver many times, but she didn’t know what it had to teach her about herself and where she came from until she got out from behind the windshield.

You can find more of Hilary’s writing at TheGription.com.

This episode reposted by permission from our friends at The Dirtbag Diaries. For more great episodes, visit them at dirtbagdiaries.com.