I blame the river.

Last week was my first full week commuting to my new job, which is in McLean, Va. Week one was mostly spent working at home in light of Snowpocalypse...which was a weird way to start a new job, to say the least.

But last week started fine. On Monday, it took me about 30 minutes to get to work and about 45 minutes to get home. Not too shabby, I thought...still less time than I was spending getting to and from KaBOOM! each day. I began to feel somewhat smug.

And then I realized Monday was a federal holiday. And then came Tuesday. I've always wondered what the Beltway would look like as a parking lot, and now I have firsthand knowledge.

My route, for what it's worth (pictured on the right), is 16 miles from start to finish. Oddly, the mornings aren't bad at all, even post-federal-holiday...it still takes roughly 30 minutes to get to work, which I think is fine. Totally dealable. It's the evenings...where my commutes have been anywhere from an hour to a whopping two hours. I'm burning through gas like crazy and truly feeling like "part of the problem."

Why take the Beltway, you may ask? Because there aren't really any other options to get from point A to point B in this case, largely due to the Potomac River. There are very few places to cross on the west side of the city, and they all get jammed. My alternative routes would involve going through the heart of the city and would, in all likelihood, take even longer. And public transit doesn't go near my new workplace, either (and even if it did...it would still take at least an hour to get there).

So this week I'm going to attempt to beat the system, but it involves a significant lifestyle change on my part. To change my work schedule from 9-6 to 10-7 (which will put me there when most of my coworkers are there anyway, and hopefully put me outside of rush hour in the evenings), I'm going to have to shift my workouts to the mornings. To most of you this may sound like no big deal, but trust me when I say this is going to be DIFFICULT. For one thing, my body is used to having at least a couple of meals in it before I hit the elliptical trainer or the strength training regimen I've mapped out for myself...and I tend to get a bit lightheaded if I work out too early in the day. It's going to take me awhile to get my body used to this. For another thing, our apartment's gym is much busier in the mornings than in the evenings, and when there are only three elliptical machines to begin with, it's going to become a bit of a competition.

So please cross your fingers for me as I try and juggle my life into something that will, I hope, lead to more sanity and less gritting of my teeth. Here goes nothing.