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But, in keeping with my belief that when lost you should never retrace your steps, I am going to do things differently this time. And, despite the evidence of the first 250 words, I want these blogs to be less about me and more about the expert advice. Let's get cracking.

First up, the swim and my inaugural expert, Britain's open water world champion .

The big splash is triathlon's briefest (if you do it even vaguely right), shortest and weirdest discipline. It is also, for most amateurs, the most intimidating.

Why? Well, it's a bit like everybody in the pool jumping into your lane at the same time and kicking you in the head. Then they turn the lights out.

So here's the first tip: man up.

And my second piece of advice is don't be proud, get a lesson.

I met Keri-Anne at Hampstead Heath's infamously unheated on just about the only cold day we've had for weeks. She had just come back from and I am very skinny, so we were both struggling with the 15-degree water temperature.

Luckily, and this is the kindest break the sport's gods have bequeathed, you can wear a wetsuit in triathlon. Here's the third tip: get one that fits properly, which means it should barely fit at all. You do not have to buy one, though, as they can be rented for the season, much like a fisherman's cottage or Victorian bathing hut.

Even with the neoprene cocoon on, I was still cold so Keri-Anne suggested I dive in, get out and then dive in again. This gives your body a chance to acclimatise and it worked a treat.

This is when things get a bit more technical and the following nuggets of advice might only apply to lazy swimmers like me who like to paddle along serenely without doing much work.

My hand was entering the water with my wrist rotated 90 degrees (thumb pointing down). This meant I was not making much splash, which is good, but I was slicing through the water at the start of my stroke, which is bad. As Keri-Anne pointed out, you've actually got to pull some water to go forwards, an excellent fourth suggestion.

The next three tips are related to that and should be of use to almost every occasional freestyler. Slow down, keep a high elbow underwater (think about it, it makes sense) and finish your strokes properly - brushing your thumb against the bottom of your trunks is a good drill to improve this.

When I walked along the poolside as Keri-Anne swam a few lengths for our TV piece, I couldn't believe how slowly she was turning her arms over and yet how quickly she was slipping through the water. Less is more.

Swimming, like driving a golf ball, making fresh pasta or a plastering a ceiling, is all about technique. Get your stroke sorted and the buoyancy of the wetsuit and adrenaline should do the rest come race day.

The next two pointers Keri-Anne passed on are to do with the actual challenge of training, because let's face it, unlike cycling or running, there is not much to look at when swimming and there's only so much thinking time I need before I start to bore myself.

So train with a friend, group of friends or perhaps even . . There is nothing wrong with bashing out 40 lengths of the pool if you've only got 30 minutes away from the desk but next time do an interval session to really raise your heartbeat and throw in a few drills to hone that stroke.

And finally, whether you are swimming 750m for a sprint or 2.4 miles for an , it is very important that you swim as close to that distance as possible and not a fraction more. So swim straight.

Keri-Anne is fortunate in this regard in that she grew up swimming without goggles and is therefore good at keeping her head down without meandering. But when she does pop her head up to "sight" where she is going she does not do it like a meerkat. She just takes a sneaky peak forward before rolling her head to the side to breathe. Nice and smooth.

I think that's more than enough swim thoughts to clutter your heads with, the only thing to add is if you haven't started training for a triathlon this summer, get on with it.

In terms of the next blog in this series, I am going to surprise absolutely nobody by finding a decent cyclist to talk to. Can't promise it will be another world champion but I will try. After that, it will be a runner and then I'll finish with an actual triathlete to talk us through the sport's "fourth discipline", the transition.

And with that I'm off to practise my high elbow.