The art of swimming has little to do with progress through the water, and much to do with how to outwit one’s fellow swimmers. I think I may have discovered the optimal time for a morning swim. At 7 am, when the pool opens, I feel like that Guards officer at Dunkirk who is supposed to have exclaimed, “My dear, the noise! And the people!”. Go an hour later and it is very different.

So I accomplished 300m, as the endurance programme prescribed, in comfort, with only one or two other swimmers in the pool.