[gray8110]

Maybe i should just plod along instead of in the drops redlining it.

If that's really how you're riding your commute, that's your answer. 40 minutes of intense efforts, 5 days a week are going to take their toll on anyone. My commute is 3 miles each way, something in between 8 & 10 minutes depending on how hard I go. If I do an 8 minute day, the dedicated training rides later in the day are harder. If you're doing nearly 3.5 hours of tempo or threshold type work just riding to work and back, your non-commute rides are going to get harder to do at the normal pace. A 10 minute ride to work is just turning the gears over, and leaves me fresh and energetic for work and for longer rides later in the day.

There are days where putting in a hard effort for your commute makes sense, but generally, if you want it to be a training ride - take a longer route for your commute and put in a focused training ride.

How many hours were you riding weekly before you started commuting? Are you adding 3+ hours of ride time to that or??

 

[gray8110]

Nothing says you can't use your commute to training benefit - but I think you'll get more training benefit of either incorporating your commute into a longer training ride or backing off a bit on the commute and using your longer rides for specific training. If you are going hard during your commute and are training towards some goal, I'd make sure you are going hard with a purpose beyond setting a fast pace to and from work every day.

To answer your title question - your commute is training no matter how hard or easy it is. It's a semantic question, but 3+ hours of your ride time per week is nothing to sneeze at.