Horribly Hilly

Last Saturday, by the numbers...7 total hours in my car, 250+ miles driven, 5+ hours on my bike, 80 miles ridden, 2 cups of coffee to make it up to Wisconsin awake, 1 tank of gas at $3.87 a gallon, 32 oz of diet mountain dew consumed on the way back to make it back to Chicago awake, 2 scoops Culver's frozen custard eaten, at least 15 times questioning own sanity.

Horribly Hilly is aptly named. It is pretty damn hilly. One might say Horribly so. Rather than expounding upon how much that course sucked, I will continue the list theme started above and share the iron-randomness that I came up with on 80 miles of hilly-suck.

1. There is a time and place for Ke$ha. I thought this was never, but it is actually a useful tool in staying awake behind the wheel. So is a test of the emergency broadcast system. But they play Ke$ha way more often.
2. There is a time and place for Big-Gulps of Diet Mountain-Dew. See #1
3. Driving past bars that are still open on the WAY to my workout makes me vacillate between feeling super lame and really superior over and over again. 
4. There is something about a hill that goes on for a mile straight that will make you question the existence of a benevolent god.
5. The most useful advice I was given on Saturday: "When you ride past roadkill, you're gonna want to make sure to keep your mouth closed for a little bit before and a little bit after."
6. It took me four hours to realize that Blue Mound State Park is actually really pretty (and it had to be pointed out to me). I was too busy swearing under my breath to notice.
7. There is something about a bad day cycling that makes me want to throw my bike and scream. Why is this? I've never had a tantrum in the middle of a long run.
8. Ending a long hilly ride with a super steep mile-long hill is just cruelty.