you need to find a way to change your attitude or you will never improve. And i m not been condescending as i very much understand your position and frustration. This is the reality of many triathlete that have to swim alone, unsupervised and struggle greatly at it.

if you want to improve, you need to put yourself in a environment where success is the only possible outcome.

Find a great swim group and coach that will be able to give you that passion for swimming and communicate that drive to get better.

Show up at the pool with VERY specific goal, and very specific skill to target each session.

Do some video review of your swimming, become immerse and dedicated to get better

Build a short routine at home with streach cord so you get to do some ''swim training'' on days you cant make it to the pool

Start watching swim video/youtube, competiton, olympics etc...and learn to like/love it... you get to see the best in the world and it will give you good mental reference as to what your ''trying to replicate'' in the water.

It s not easy, but it can be done and been done by so many. I have a squad of 20-25 athletes in penticton and i think everyone is loving a little more swimming since they join the group and get hook by the high energy and committment of everyone to improve and get better.


Also remember...any swim fitness gain will translate in higher watts on the bike and faster runs.... it s not 3 sport... it s one sport

best of luck!

If you love triathlon, or any sport, that means learning to love the bits you absolutely suck at.
I had so much fun sucking at swimming. I'd work construction during the week and do a couple of early morning practices with the local swim team (couldn't even hang with the 10yr olds). Saturday and Sunday evenings I'd go back solo 4:30-6:30, have a hot chocolate and a donut while they shut the pool down for half an hour, then jump back in 7-9. Started winning local races that summer.
Another dude was doing something similar down the road in Penticton that year. Can't remember his name, think it rhymed with "diamonds" or something. Heard he's had a pretty good career....

My pool 1500 scm went from 25min to 21min from October 2006 to March 2007. The swim club I swam with (I say "with" but they had to create a special super-slow lane...) had a coaching switch that winter, with the former coach having a "miles make the champions" approach, and the new one a lower-mileage, speed/technique-based way of doing things. I learnt a lot from both, but moving from one to the other was essentially like going from a base to a speed phase, and it had a positive effect.
We never tested, but JonnyO had me around 20min for a push 1500m in training last year, and all my best Tri swims including 54 for IM (from 1:23 at my first).

I really didn't care about doing the backstroke for twenty minutes, and breaststroke or butterfly?!? I didn't mind if they threw a small set in of these, but I don't want to wake up at 4am to spend a hour doing strokes that I have ZERO interest in learning.
This made me a masters drop out. I felt like I was wasting my time, the coach did understand and emailed me workouts that were more freestyle specific when I asked.

You realize that other strokes improve posture and body balance/awareness?
And Butterfly, done properly, being a really hard core workout?
And don't get me started on the benefit of kicking.

Plus swimming strokes makes it mentally challenging to stay on top of the workout and for sure takes the boredom out of swimming alone.....even if you only do long axis strokes (Free, Backstroke)..

Swimming 4 hr/day on Sat and Sun is very impressive. While swimmers do this routinely, I've never known or heard of another triathlete swimming this much. Kudos to you, Sir. So, how much time did you drop off of your pool times??? (I ask about the pool b/c we all know any given "1500 m" tri swim could be 1000 m, or occasionally 2000, but more likely short than long, IME.)

When I was training for ultra-distance tris, my pool workouts were routinely 5-6,000 yards. My OW swims would creep up to 5 miles leading up to races. That was tough for the November race, when my local waters had temps in the upper 50s!

That said, I suck at swimming... And I swam in high school and college.

Well, "sucking" is all relative but if you swam in HS and college, you must swim relatively well by tri standards.

I guess it is relative... Knowing that 20 years ago I could've swum sub 55 for an Ironman swim frustrates me when I now do ~1:14.

Surely if you worked more at your swimming you could get back down pretty close to 55??? I mean, you're only prob about 42-ish??? You can't have lost that much since you are just over 40 but i suspect you have not been putting same amount of energy into your swim as you have your B and R over the past few years.