Hello! On 22 September I'll be swimming four miles in the River Arun for spinal cord charity Aspire.

I'm a complete newbie to open water events so I'm rather nervous about this one! However I've got 9 months to prepare and I plan to train as much as I can for the big day.

I'll be writing a blog about my training - here's part 1, all about my first training session in the pool and getting to grips with front crawl.

Please donate anything you can - Aspire is a wonderful charity that helps those with Spinal Cord Injury to live full, independent lives.