For eleven years of my life, I spent over 20 hours per week in the water. I started swimming competitively at nine and finished out my senior year of college in a Division 1 swimming program- and with serious bursitis and tendonitis in both shoulders. After talking to a couple of doctors postseason I was told that my swimming days were done- which forced me to turn to the one form of exercise I had avoided since elementary school.

I hate running. I have always hated running. I also hate sweating, shin splints, and hills — why do you think I chose to devote every waking hour to one of the only sports on the planet that doesn’t directly involve running?

But I was determined that I would learn to like it since swimming was no longer an option and I needed a form of cardio that I could channel my training energy into. So I downloaded the C25K app and bought a good pair of Asics. To motivate myself further, I signed up for a 5K. Not to mention, I live in North Carolina, one of the most 5K friendly states, according to a recent study, so I felt even more inclined to sign up. As a highly, highly competitive former athlete, I knew that would drive me to actually train. I really hate to lose.

It took a few tries. My problem was that I thought I could skip ahead in the program since I was already in pretty decent shape. I ran as much as I could as fast as I could- which quickly lead to the development of shin splints, the need to take time off to avoid injury, and then the process would start all over again. Finally, I managed to set my ego aside and start training exactly as the app dictated, starting off slow with interval running and most importantly not overdoing things. Within 3 months, I finished my first 5K race with a pretty good time of 27 minutes and now I’m training for a 10k.

Running isn’t the kind of thing you can just jump into, no matter how in shape you are, but setting the goal of finishing a race really helped with motivation. Is running my favorite workout? No. But I love how training feels, and I’m pretty sure eventually, I’ll like it almost as much as swimming. Almost.