8 months is plenty time to train. my daughter grew up in UK and didn’t learn to swim. at 11, she learnt to swim, and swam midmar between May 04 and Feb 2005. Telkom/Virgin Active have a swim challenge series that kicks off in Sept, that is brilliant to help with midmar training. start off swimming the 500m at a venue close to you, go for the 1km at the next swim challenge, and then Midmar. doing the swim challenges really helped getting over the shock of swimming in a dam instead of a pool too, and the starts of the swim challenge aren’t as hectic as midmar, not as much pushing and shoving. if you don’t want to get involved with the sheer numbers invovled in midmar (there were 3500+ starting in our race this year), you could swim the Golden Mile at Midmar over the easter weekend – its a far more pleasant swim, because it isnt as crowded.