Three a week, now four

From Bike commute 12 Sept

Our second full week. and except for Tuesday I managed to go in each day. My muscles don't hurt quite so much, but my time seems the same (or even slower). I'm not racing, but think I ought to make it in under an hour (closer to 45 minutes) and its been consistently over an hour. 18 miles home and I'm not sure of the time as I never remember to look both before I go and when I get back. The mornings are darker and the weather is cooler in just a week. First week in Sept. I noticed some of the oaks near the shore turning burgundy, now color is creeping into the vines along the road (woodbine aka "Virginia creeper"). Fields are looking tired and daisies are shriveling. I saw them harvesting from the N. Point Road bogs on Friday (the picture is above).
While my body is adjusting, I feel that the bike is consuming too much of my life (reading about bikes, fiddling with the fenders, getting the light charged up) I hope to swing back to normalcy as I get things up to speed. To that end, on Friday I hit a bit of a undesired milestone - I went on automatic pilot. About 1/2 way in I had the feeling that I was beyond where I had paid attention. I made all the correct turns, but didn't focus on them. Lost in thought about the day or news I went to school. I'm biking, just not aware of it all.