“Open your moth under the water and let the water in.” This was the advice of my swimming coach, who I’m slightly worried is trying to kill me. I keep swallowing water and, although it’s probably not going to kill me, I’d rather not drink my own bath water let alone water that a good hundred people have been splashing around in.

It seems counter intuitive – stop drinking the swimming pool by opening your mouth and letting your mouth fill with the stuff. But, as she explained, “You need to get used to having water in your mouth, so you stop swallowing it.”

So, as well as doing an impression of a Polar Bear down at my local pool twice a week, I now have to imitate a basking shark. Like a basking shark I too cause looks of concern from the nearby lifeguards as I trash about, mouth wide open in the shallows – but we both pose no danger to other swimmers, only to ourselves.

The swim coach has been right about pretty much everything so far. I don’t need to gasp for breath when my face finally surfaces from the pool (although I still opt to do this) and gradually I have stopped sinking to the bottom of the pool less and less while doing my drills.

Her other pearl of wisdom this week was to “Abandon all hope, but keep the faith.” This is supposed to keep me from drowning. I’ve pretty much abandoned any hope that I’ll make it to Rio 2016, but I still have faith in my instructor – that’s why you’ll find me mouth wide open scaring swimmers in the pool this week.