Yep.. you might be flooding your connection. But also, remember that the speeds you get, depends a lot on luck.
* Some clients have slow upload, that affects your download.
* If the fast clients are snubbed (upload-slots full), you'd have to wait before you download from them.
* You usually don't get a complete peer-list from the tracker, so your client might not even know of the high-speed peers; other than indirectly, by you watching other clients download speeds.
* If you are firewalled, that might influence speeds as well.
My download speeds usually start out pretty low, then climbs. I can start out at around 2-3 kb/s and then rise up to around 200 kb/s.
Patience is a virtue