I’ve always been a strong swimmer. But since I’m not able to run much any more...I’ve been doing considerably more swimming (and cycling) the past few years. In the summers I’m in the open water much more (I live in coastal RI just a couple blocks from our town beach). In the past two summers, I’ve trained up for and swam in a few 6½-7 mile open ocean races. Swimming for those long distances along the shoreline, or around mooring fields isn’t quite so boring as hours of laps in the pool. But in the winters when I go back to the pool I’ve started ‘counting’ laps less. Instead, I just go by time. If I want to swim a certain distance I just swim at my average pace for approximately however long it’d take me to swim that distance. If I’m off...it’s only by a lap or two...so no big deal. Not counting laps allows me to ponder so much more while I swim. Also...instead of just swimming long, slow, boring distance...do some speed work occasionally. If I go to the pool and want to swim 1½ (2400 meters)...sometimes I’ll do a 400m warmup, 16x100m repeats @ 2:00, and then a 400m cool down (Your personal time interval between the sprints may differ). You’ll be surprised how doing regular speed work will make you a faster swimmer. Or maybe I’ll do repeats of 400m to equal a mile or two. Obviously rest between 400s is longer. Another thing you can do is practice the other strokes. As a triathlete...you should have a grasp of swimming breaststroke anyway. It’s frequently useful at the start of the swim, or when it gets crowded at turns during the swim. Backstroke and butterfly aren’t really useful to a triathlete. But you can use them to break the monotony of constantly swimming crawl stroke. IMO swimming is swimming ... meaning that swimming those strokes can still help build endurance and speed. Every now and then I’ll go to the pool and swim a 1-mile (1600m) Individual Medly...400m butterfly, 400m backstroke, 400m breaststroke, 400m freestyle.
Dan