Originally Posted by
shovelhd
I would not expect to be able to do this every day for a week the first week. Take a day off after day one, then see how you feel after day two. If you don't feel up to it, don't beat yourself up about taking another day off. Make 2 days in a row your next goal. Ignore the HTFU crowd. There's plenty of time for that.
Great advice - I should have added that in my post.
I had taken a long break from cycling, before starting up again and had been riding pretty steadily (100 + miles/week) before I started commuting. Still, I found 20 miles a day more challenging that I thought it would be to do it *every* day; something about doing two 10-mile rides a day is a bit more difficult than 1 20-mile ride.
Now I vary my commutes quite a bit - if I ride a lot on the weekends, I take it easy on Monday and Tuesday. Then I pick one or two commutes a week to ride pretty hard -- on a heavy bike, carrying a lot of stuff, it's a pretty good workout.