man up!

i've decided to come to terms w/ my tummy problems and stop moping around the house trying to figure out what to do. the bf was very sweet and brought flowers, pepto, activia yogurt and diet ginger ale when he came to visit on monday. yesterday, after waiting at the doctor's office for 1.5 hours (seriously, if they can't see me until 1:15, don't tell me to come at 11:45!!) i was given some drugs and told, if they don't work, RUN to the hospital and take out your appendix.. so i guess it's just wait and see. i was inspired by my italian colleague who pretty much said "suck it up and deal w/ it" so decided to continue with my training plan, delayed, as scheduled by cm. on the plan for monday was a 2 hour bike ride focusing on high cadence and no run afterwards. it was fun! and a relief to focus on just one thing (cadence and not speed) w/o worrying about the brick. the weather was perfect, too, slightly cool albeit a little damp. then this morning the plan was to do last week's NTT (nameless tri team, for now) track workout, and i borrowed sb's times as a goal. i hear he's faster than me on short distances so i thought it would be a good way to stay motivated. when i saw his times, i was a little intimidated.. ok pretty intimidated b/c my 400s were about 10 seconds slower than his before. 8x400 10k pace w/ 200 rest, then 4x200 "all out" w/ 200 rest. i hope i can count up to 8, i thought.

i've decided that track workouts are kind of fun too b/c i feel like a kid, running around in circles, sometimes fast sometimes slow. it's also fun running in the dark, though a bit hard to check times. where is the halfway mark on the track? sb's averages for the 400's were between 1:30 and 1:40 and mine went from 1:48 to 1:38ish. i did notice that when i felt more confident around the 5th loop, i did manage to pick it up a little with less hectic breathing. i found the the 200's "all out" rather amusing b/c for the life of me i couldn't motivate myself to go "all out." i tried everything, from imagining that i was almost at the finish line for a race, pretending there was a string pulling me forward, picturing sb and everyone else zooming ahead of me, yelling at myself "GO GO GO!!" but my 200 times were pretty much half of my 400 times. it's like my legs are worried that they might actually have to run longer later on so they need to conserve energy. oh well, this was my first full track workout since 2 summers ago so i guess it takes time. if anyone has tips for self motivation, they are welcome.

then onto columbia swim. i'm going to miss the pool when our office moves to wall street. Alpha Male gave some unsolicited advice but i didn't really care b/c she was right (lengthen your stroke, relax) and b/c she's done IMLP. cm said it would be good to swim and chill out if i felt sick. we did 1000 warmup (but i think i did 500, i kept turning around halfway through the lane b/c it is rude to tap someone's foot during a warmup, apparently) then 10x100 pull w/ every 3rd 25 = fly pull, then 10x100 w/ 25 back, 25 breast, 50 free, w/ all of these sets on 1:50. i hate back so subbed all the backs w/ fly, which i'm quite proud of being able to do! but by the 3rd 100 of this set i was feeling nauseous and hot. since i was leading the lane i didn't want to wimp out so decided just to finish the set of 100s and hop out of the pool asap lest i decide to finish the whole workout or throw up in the pool. i'm glad i left on a good set but kind of wish i didn't feel crappy b/c it makes the whole day kind of hazy.

on the side note, A is going to watch screaming people band (metallica) on jan 31 and i am so glad he is not dragging me..