There is some merit in mixing your sessions up so as to avoid too much time on your legs, being a larger player that may require you to run twice a week and do some aqua jogging/sprinting work, some hypoxic swim intervals, and some cross training on a rower/bike or whatever you have available to you, but bottom line you haveto run since it is a running game and you need to be specific in your running, it is one thing to get centrally fit (hearts/lungs) but the running will get you peripherally fit (vascular system in legs) as well, so you can not avoid it but if the grounds are hard just ease back and pick up the slack on the other options, ash