Okay, so I did bike to Waddinxveen (and back) today - and I never want to do that again. See, I biked a really long way yesterday, 45km or so, scoping out the route for 'some future bike attempt' (since I was planning to get the early train this morning) ... and it made my knees kind of sore so I was glad I got to wait a while before I tried it 'for real'. But then I found out there were no buses running on time, so I just went ahead and biked it today. The way there was okay - a bit uncomfortable, but doable, even at that early hour - but the way back was hellish. My knees hurt a lot, my butt hurt a lot, my shoulders hurt from my bag (because I haven't gotten any bungee cords for the rack yet, so I had to wear the backpack the whole way), and I was hungry and thirsty and cranky (because that sore throat did indeed turn into the cold that the rest of the school had during the first week - bah). It's not a muscle ache in my knees; my muscles are perfectly fine (takes a LOT to mess them up) - it seems to be a ligament or tendon, whichever one runs directly over the kneecap. (Going up and down stairs, oh yeah, that's a good time.)

And to add to my irritation, this Masters team isn't really what I hoped it would be. I hate that it turned out that way after all the effort I went to to get involved in it, but the bottom line is that although I like the other swimmers, the team doesn't really seem to do anything to help its members improve. There's no real 'coach' to give feedback, there are no intervals in the workouts to encourage/help with speed (meaning everyone just swims at their own pace the whole time), we're not sorted into lanes according to speed (meaning I'm constantly passing most of the other women and getting passed myself by one or two speed-demon guys)... and the general philosophy is basically 'just jump in and do the posted workout'. The whole reason I like swimming with a team is because it tends to offer me challenges that I can't or wouldn't think of setting for myself, but this team really does nothing that I can't do on my own. Instead of paying 7 euro to spend hours traveling to and from Waddinxveen, I could pay a 3,50 entry and take a five-minute bike trip to the Krommerijn swimming pool right around the corner. I'm going to try that tomorrow or Tuesday and see how it goes (plus, starting 12 Sept I'll probably be able to swim with the Utrecht student swim club on Monday and Wednesday - only for an hour, though). I may still go to a couple more Waddinxveen practices - who knows, I might even stick around, if it proves too difficult to get into the Krommerijn's lanes for free lap swim - but it's far from ideal. Like I said, I hate that it's coming to this after all the effort I put out to try to find a suitable team - because I really thought this was going to be great - but there you are. Oh well, I guess I have to take charge of my own training at some point. Anyway, the whole point of trying to keep my condition up over here is to (a) be in shape for meets once I get back to UF, and (b) get ready for the 24-mile Tampa Bay swim in April... and I don't think anyone else needs that level of preparation, so it's probably best if I just do it myself, anyway.

Sorry this post was all negative, but you know - some days are like that. I'm about to go take some of the prescription decongestant that my UF doctor prescribed, which I had the incredible foresight to bring along - go Jess! ;)

Tomorrow: linguistics at 16:00 and (hopefully) swimming (on my own) in the morning. Also, a run to the store for milk, nuts, Actimel, chocolate, and detergent would not be amiss.