Are you worried about being able to complete the swim? Or are you concerned with going faster?
Conventional wisdom would be to drop the straight swim and do a more structured approach. If you can do 2600 straight, you don’t need to worry about being physically capable of completing the swim.
If you can get in more than 2x per week, I’d recommend you do that.
Main goal is to finish, a better time will of course be better, but I just need to finish.
Right now, I do the long swim and a ladder swim, this week the ladder was a 300m warmup then 600-500-400-300-200-100 with some rest in between each step and trying to go faster each step, then a 200m cool down.
I was planning on doing a 2650 straight swim, but did 2000m as I think i might be overdoing it with the 2650, and I wanted to get more info before going back to that long of a swim
I actually have considered adding another day of swimming, to go 3 times a week, the extra day will be some sort of interval swim.
But yah I guess my idea is I like the long swim, but I want to do one that will prepare me for the 1500m in a Lake Michigan in August, which means very high waves, and then the rest of the race.
My thought is that I would want to go farther than just the 1500m, so my body can adjust to the waves and still have energy for a bike and run, but I am not sure I need to go 2600m, which can get mentally draining, so I am wondering if there is a sweet spot for a distance for a long swim (today I actually only did 2000m, just to keep it easy until I get more info).
FWIW I am 30 years old and in pretty good shape. I did my first sprint tri this fall and finished in 1:16 (the swim was only 400m, so add a few minutes), and right now when I am in the pool, I swim 100m in about 2:10 or so, when I am doing those longer swims.
Thank you for your help!