When we have more than a few clients going to a particular race, we try our best to make time in our calendar to be there to support them. This year we have the most clients competing in Miami Man coming up in November, so those tickets and hotel reservations have been booked, and I happily have been scouring Instagram to make my food list - which, let's be honest, is really the only reason I like to travel: to eat. But in the midst of all of my food planning one of our clients suggested I sign up for the Aquathlon (1000M swim followed by a 5K run) since we'll already be in Miami. I promptly laughed, scoffed, and brushed the idea off, saying no, I didn't compete in anything anymore, not to mention things that involved running. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I missed having something to train for, and the more exciting of a prospect it became. So, here I sit, training for a race that involves my favorite type of workout and my least favorite type of workout. Hopefully I don't need to say which is which, but to spell it out for you, I DO NOT LIKE running. Oof.

Since my workouts nowadays are made up of random HIIT, weight lifting, and the elliptical, I really need to switch things up to get trained for November. Thankfully my kind hearted husband has taken pity on me and is helping me get prepped and ready so I don't get out of the lake and just walk the 5K while daydreaming about the food I could be eating. This means no more random workouts made up of whatever I feel like at the time. I need to really focus on getting my endurance back and actually learning how to run and race properly, not just make it through. But first let's start with the swims.

Pool Workouts

Good thing I have our Endless Pool to train in! It's especially good for me because I grew up competing in pools and am not the most comfortable when it comes to swims that don't involve walls and flip turns...so these workouts are just what I need to get rid of that crutch. These first few weeks I've been doing the following:

35-55 minute swim

• 5 minute warm up at 1:21 pace
• 12-20 rounds of 1:30 swim pace, starting at 1:18, w/ :20 seconds rest
• 5 minute warm down

I have the rounds set at such a broad range because it's time dependent on when we have an opening in our SwimBox schedule. I started out with the 1:30s at 1:18 and now and am doing them at 1:17 and going down to 1:15. It's so great to be back in the pool, it's always felt so comforting to me and gives me a feeling that no other workout does. If only I felt that way when it came to running, sigh.

But enough complaining, time to suck it up. Stay tuned to read about my running workouts and my training journey!