5 mile commute. Every morning I don't want to ride. Every morning on my way to work I think about how much this sucks, and how slow I am riding, and how much work it is, until about a mile from work, when things start to mellow out.
Then I arrive at work, EARLY of course, and have time to drink my coffee and relax. and I can only think about how nice it was to ride into work. I feel good.
Going home from work, I think about 10, 15, or 20 mile detours and how great they would be. If I can't detour, I ride home as fast as I can, pressing hard on the pedals, breathing hard. Either way, I am exhilarated and happy when I get home.
The moral is, riding to work seems to suck but is great afterwards, and riding home is always great, even when I have to take the shortest and fastest route. Because my go to work route is short, I barely warm up before I am there. I don't start feeling good till the very end. But no way I am going to wake up any earlier to get more miles in, 5:15 AM is plenty early as it is. Leaving early in the morning so that no matter what, you have time to relax when you get there, is very important to the morning commute.