Overall, I feel happy with my training and progress. I am pretty satisfied that I in a position where, I will be able to complete my swims, in the time frames I am aiming for, that is:

400m-10minutes

1500m-45minutes

2500m-1 hour 15 minutes

But, before Swimathon 2018 is even completed, I am planning for 2019. I want to swim 5km, at the London Aquatic Centre. To this end, I want to develop my freestyle (front crawl) further and to this end, I decided to look at the possibility of an intensive course. There’s bound to be something suitable I thought, in my ignorance.

Since this point I have spent many a fruitless hour searching Google. Google’s own search results haven’t helped in this regard, providing me with many random results. I’ve put in “adults”, Google comes back options for 9-16 year olds. Uk? No problem, here’s a swim school in New York. Swimming pool? Here’s a lake in Mexico that might suffice!

After searching through these inaccurate results, I’m really no further forward…many of the courses on offer, are for none swimmers. The cost, of some of these courses is astounding, £700 for 2 days or £1000 for 4, with 6 hours tuition, with the cost of the lesson amounting to £75 per hour! To the ”average person”, this will be way beyond their means. It’s certainly beyond mine.

Other options where a ”intermediate course”, this sounded more promising, but the small print revealed that the pool was only 11metre in length, meaning that with the six people, the course accommodated, there would be minimal opportunities for swimming.

Other courses are held in a pool, but with the focus on open water. Open water swimming is something I want to explore, in the future, but I’m not ready yet. One of my goals this year, is to swim in Tooting Bec Lido, which is 91metres long and I’m determined to utilise to outdoor swimming pools, in the North East of England, this year.

I beginning to conclude that finding a freestyle swim development course, that suits me and budget, is not available in the UK. To this end, I’m going to look for a Masters Group I can join, not to be a competitive swimmer, but to develop as a swimmer.

This, I feel, in conclusion may prove to be the better option. Aside from the fact, that the costs are considerably less, it will allow for continued, and supported, development in opposed to a short, sharp burst of development, offered by a course.