DUBAI // Kate Willoughby spends three hours a night in the pool trying to get fit for a 33-kilometre swim around the World Islands in November.
The Dubai woman hopes to complete the swim in under 12 hours, and is raising awareness of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a fatal condition that affects her six-year-old nephew, Harrison Smith.
The rare inherited disorder affects boys, and symptoms can come on in early infancy. It affects one in 3,500 male births.
Nowadays, with high standards of care, men can live into their 30s.
Ms Willoughby has sought the help of experts to get the timing right with currents and tides. In January she approached Brendan Jack, head of sustainability and environment at Nakheel, to help her find the best conditions.
"I looked at all the tides and currents and moon phases for the right conditions," Mr Jack said.
That led her to choose November 21 for the swim.
"It [the condition] is not very well known and I wanted to raise as much awareness as possible," said Ms Willoughby. "It had to be around something really iconic and world famous.
"No one has done it before, it's an enormous goal - doing something for the first time and hopefully capturing people's imagination."
She came up with an awareness concept last year, and quickly abandoned running for swimming.
"I swim because I hate running. I've done a marathon but I was a water baby and always enjoyed the water," she said. "I started the plan on January 15 with one-kilometre swims, which I thought were enormous."
She has since increased her workload and distance, along with her confidence, and is now up to eight kilometres a day."I'm quietly confident I can do it. Before I started ... I was in the overweight section. I wasn't fit. I wasn't swimming."
She said she learnt from the mistakes she made when she ran the London Marathon in 2007. "I know what I did wrong; I started training and then lost the push and then it got too hard and I stopped and that was why it was hard for me."
Ms Willoughby, 32, from Britain, is taking a lesson from that experience and is "really applying that to the swim. I have to do the training, the hours and I've also put a support team around me".
She has enlisted the help of Jay Benner, the UAE national coach.
"I've surrounded myself with inspiring people and the support system so I have the best chance of success."
Her biggest fear is failure after 11 months of training. In addition to tides and currents, she also has to make sure to keep hydrated in the 28°C water and avoid sunburn while swimming at midday. She plans to drink and eat every 30 minutes to get around the islands.
Mr Jack is planning the route to take advantage of the currents, and determine where Ms Willoughby should start.
The tide moves in and around the six gaps in the development's breakwaters.
"These areas are not designated as recreation areas in this project," Mr Jack said. "The project's swimming areas are around the islands where the currents are light. She will be swimming around areas where there's more water exchange taking place, which we never intended for recreational swimming."
It's not the first time Nakheel has been approached with the idea but no swimmer has yet made the swim. Nakheel said Allison Shreeve, a world champion windsurfer from Australia, did sail outside the breakwater.
"Inside it's more of a feat of endurance and she will be in the water 12 hours and in that time she'll have the tide shift a few times," Mr Jack said.
He wants Ms Willoughby to swim in and around the islands a number of times to get acquainted with the waters, the currents and the jellyfish."I'd also like to get her in an adverse condition so she can get to terms with it and be mentally prepared for what that means," he said.
He will put her in strong currents a few weeks beforehand so she knows what to expect. The key is not to panic and use up energy if she gets caught in a current.
Ms Willoughby's family - including her nephew - will gather at the Royal Island Beach Club on Lebanon Island on race day, following every stroke. Any money she raises will go to the harrisonfund.org.