Swimming Lessons

I discovered an amazing swimming pool in the very centre of London where I am still to find more than 5 people in the fast lane during an early morning session. It's marble-lined with a huge vaulted ceiling and 30m in length. In fact it is such a well-kept London secret that I'm afraid I'm not going to disclose the location. It even comes with history: the paras used to train there during WWII.
It was here I booked in to my first swimming lesson since the age of 8. You could count swim coaching with the Pony Club Tetrathlon Team since this tender age but the main challenge back then was getting me to put my head under water without holding my nose and upgrade from doggy paddle to front crawl.
In completing the Cowman I'd managed 1.9km in something like 37 minutes. In completing the IM distance I am upping the challenge to 3.8km, lets say 4km for psychological reasons. In case I get lost on course or something.
I needed to check I was swimming as efficiently as I possibly could for the first part of the IM. Even if I don't go any faster as a result, I would like to be expanding less energy. The man who has taken on the challenge is David Tatler who recently helped Frank Skinner conquer his fear of water alongside Karen Pickering for Sport Relief: http://www.swimming.org/bigsplash/news/frank-skinner-makes-a-big-splash-for-sport-relief.

We will be breaking down my stroke and working on technique initially. I then want his help trying to break up the monotony of swimming 30m lengths and working towards the 4km distance. This will hopefully take me through to the end of May when I finally get back into a wetsuit and the cool waters of Tooting Lido (90m & outdoor). After this it's on to Heron Lakes (1 km loop) and going back to the same problem I started out with: putting my head under the murky depths without holding my nose.