Today I had blood work and an ultrasound of my abdomen. I finally went to the doctor on Monday because it has been too long and us women have to go if we want to or not.  When the dr touch me I jumped off the table, so he ordered all this stuff for me to do. I am happy to say it is nothing. I never even knew I had a pain until he touched it. Because it is nothing I am starting to think it was just a pulled muscle. Any way that brings me to my subject of the day. When my doctor put gallstones and gallbladder problems into my head it made me worry that I would have to have surgery. The worry was not about being cut open, but about not being able to run or bike or swim for a while. I have been looking for a race and just can not seem to find one. I keep going back and forth with the the idea of:  do I need a race to make me faster and keep training hard or do I just need to train hard and not race for a bit. I have never been happy with my speed on the bike and I want to become a stronger biker. I am ok with my run but I would always like it to be faster wouldn't we all. My swim I could also work on. But l the question is still there will I get stronger and faster with a race in my future or will I be more focused with nothing to distract me. I tend to do go with long distance evens because I conserve myself but maybe if I just pushed it with no concern of the DNF then maybe I could get faster. I know I need speed work and to do more strength training but I again am so concerned with being too sore to do other workouts. Hmmmm