Mary Allott set for Shelagh's swimming challenge

When BBC Radio 5 live presenter Shelagh Fogarty heard about the Big Splash, she was eager to get involved.

A keen swimmer, Shelagh is passionate about the campaign and in order to lend her support, two months ago she announced she would help a non-swimmer take to the water for the first time and follow their progress on her radio show, weekdays 1200-1400.

After sifting through the many emails, texts and tweets, Shelagh and her production team found an email from Mary Allott, a 43-year-old mother of three from Hertfordshire, who desperately wanted to learn the life skill for her children and her health.

With the help of British Swimming, who have provided a coach and swimming lessons for Mary, BBC Radio 5 live and the Big Splash will follow her progress as she strives to prove it is possible to go from a swimming novice who is scared of the water, to a competent swimmer able to play with her kids in the pool and to take on a swimming challenge in 2012.

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Hi Shelagh

I am a 43-year-old overweight woman, married with three children.

Although I "swam" as a youngster (enforced by school), I hated it as I was never really taught to swim. I did enough to pass some badges but any knowledge, skill or confidence has since disappeared.

With my increased adiposity (body weight), I can float very well and I do a spectacular star shape, according to my seven-year-old daughter Maeve!

My difficulty now is that I am unable to keep up with my children. I can get in the pool but nothing else, it's embarrassing. I want to be in the water with them and not only in the shallow end, but I just don’t feel safe. I can’t put my face in the water and I don’t like getting splashed.

My 11-year-old daughter Ciara is now a really good swimmer. She swims for the local club and we tend to be at swimming galas and competitions all the time, so I’m always in the environment.

I also have a son, Fergus, who is nine. His real love is football but he is competent and skilled in the water.

Neither myself or my husband Ian are from swimming families. My parents can't swim and Ian's mum can’t swim either, although his father learned at the same time as him.

Recently my two eldest children did a sponsored swim for the local hospice and I could only watch from the side.

I feel distinctly left out.

In spite of my children's pleas to get into the water with them, or my friends who will try to coerce me to get in when we are doing some communal parenting during the school holidays, I can’t. I feel a tremendous increase in anxiety – heart rate, sweaty, nauseous etc.

I also have a weird form of narcolepsy – a sleeping disorder where I don’t enter into REM sleep and therefore have daytime sleepiness.

The doctors keep telling me that I need to increase my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) - which is basically the number of calories my body burns to keep functioning at rest.

Exercise should help with this, so I have tried to increase what I do by cycling (badly), playing badminton when I can, playing netball regularly and trying not to be sedentary at all. However, I still have not been able to kick-start my BMR.

If I do, I will lose weight and therefore the whole idiopathic hypersomnia thing may (no guarantees) improve.

I think swimming may be way forward with this and I would just love to be the guinea pig!

Best wishes

Mary Allott

The BBC Big Splash and BBC Radio 5 live will be following Mary's progress over the next nine months.

If you want to learn how to swim or improve your technique, go to the official British Swimming website and find out about swimming in your area.