Attitude toward work affects whether I commute

Last week I kept finding excuses to ride with someone. I kept not feeling like biking in to work.

This week I was thrilled to get on my bike and go.

The difference? This week I was in a teaching workshop called Connecting Undergraduates to the Enterprise of Science (CUES). I absolutely loved it. The CUES project is NSF funded and the goal is to add more inquiry elements into undergraduate science labs, which are traditionally cookbook-style, easy to do, no thinking required, no learning occurring.

For 3 days I didn't think about how mad I am. Now it's back to the lab, painfully keeping my mouth shut.

A lot of the CUES participants are cyclists. At the dinner Monday night, I ended up near some other cyclists, and a good deal of the evening was spent talking about biking. I couldn't help climbing on a soapbox when the lady next to me, who is not really a cyclist, talked about biking on sidewalks with her kids. Poor woman...I hope I convinced her to take the Road I course. So many people, including her, respond with "Well, I'll send my kids to Bike Pro." Bike safety isn't just for kids, folks.

I take a different approach . . . I tell myself that commuting on my bike is going to be the best thing I do all day, so I better not pass it up!

My obstacle lately has been that I'm feeling physically burned out -- I did a supported tour over Memorial Day weekend -- far more miles (and hills!) than I'm in shape for -- and then came back to long hours at the office and haven't been sleeping well. Not feeling alert enough to safely operate the bicycle, so the last two weeks I either ride the bus or sleep in and drive. Not good!

Try not to let how you feel about work wreck your enjoyment of your ride. There's a reason it's called work . . .

. . . and when I'm having a particularly bad day I find it helps to reflect on my long-term goals and check in with myself as to how my current situation will lead to achieving those goals. Always helps to put things into perspective.

I was only able to commute one day last week and it left me feeling cranky (I didn't get to do any regular road rides either). I've hit my 3 day goal this week, including riding the road bike today rather the the commuter beast.

That leaves me feeling much happier.

I find it more difficult to get out of bed, in general, when I'm unhappy with my job. Since I've been unhappy for so long (since at least August!), I gained 7 pounds this winter because I just couldn't get out of bed to go to the gym. Now that it's sunny and warm out, I'm trying to commute by bike several days each week, but it's still so hard to drag my butt out of bed. But once I do, I find that my attitude improves immensely. I may still hate my job, but at least I got some exercise and sun! :D

I hope things get better for you soon, Melalvai.