Swim Times and Workouts

Hi, welcome to BT and triathlon! If there's an open mentor group here on the forums, those are great places to get advice and support and sift through BT's (yes, vast ) resources.

The #1 thing that will help improve your swimming at this point is to get some focused, in-person feedback on your specific swim style/technique and how to build a more efficient, powerful stroke from where you're at. Some Masters swim group coaches can do this (or give you a few private sessions), some tri coaches with a specific swim background can do this--unless you're in way-beyond-podunk Texas, this should be available and you can get recommendations from other triathletes.

If you're really stuck, you could try posting swim video of yourself in the Tri Talk forum and ask for feedback. (for what shots to get/how -- even a smartphone in a Ziploc baggie will work -- ask that too)

The plans for paid membership here generally do have structured swim workouts.

In my opinion and experience, the best resource for people who can already do front crawl (freestyle) is to get Sheila Taormina's Swim Speed Secrets (the book) and Swim Speed Workouts (if you can only get 1, get the workouts--there is tons of helpful info on her website and videos) and do the workouts. They are longish, but you pick and choose and adjust the workouts and times according to what you can do. Like most effective swim workouts, they are broken up into sets and repeats--swimming continuously for as long and/or fast as you can is not effective and you will plateau quickly.

Speaking of plateaus, perfectly normal to have off weeks or several weeks plateau then a breakthrough.

Good luck!