A bit of description of your route profile.
Suburban and residential streets. Maybe 2 miles on busy arterials. Most streets are low traffic. I leave home 6AM to get safer riding on the arterial street and I leave work 630PM so I don't have to wait so long at stopsigns or unprotected crossing of arterials. Round trip I'll do 900 feet of climbing. Going to work I stay in the saddle but going home there are 3 hills I have to stand on pedals to crest. The bigger hills don't have clear runouts so I can't take much advantage riding them downhill in the morning (loose sand; sharp blind corners and stop signs).

What kind of bike you ride. (photos would be cool)
Nice carbon fiber women's road bike. Specialized Ruby Pro. I had to lose the nice CF seatpost for an alloy that I could put a beam rack on.

How you carry your gear and what or how much (volume) stuff you bring on the ride.
Spare tire, CO2, irons, emergency power bar, air gauge go in a saddlebag. Work clothes, electronics, wallet, other stuff goes in a nice pannier on a beam rack. I avoid carrying my laptop and I usually take foodstuffs for the workweek on a car day.

Distance & time (average speed if you care to share)
25 miles r/t. There are a lot of stopsigns and slow red lights; there are hills and usually some headwind. My average speed is 11-ish mph. I try not to do rolling stops when I am riding through a university campus (fear of being ticketed!)

Other
I'm shooting for 4x/week and usually ride 2x. I've been back on the bike for less than a year. I don't ride if it's raining, windy/gusting, sub-freezing, if I have midday errands, oversleep, have to work past 7, or if I don't feel like it. I do try to swim on non-bike days so I'm physically active at least 5 days each week.