Whats your experience level? How long have you been swimming ? Based on your qx only I'm assuming your somewhat new to swimming. Swimming is one of the most counter intuitive things we humans do. It is un-natural for us to stick our face in the water. The water temp can cause a gasp response...etc. You can not get good at swiming or comfortable in the water unless you do it alot.

Relatively new, yeah, I've only really been swimming significantly for about the last year, probably on a rough average about 3-4 hours/wk. It's only occurred to me to start logging my swim workouts over the last couple weeks, but you're welcome to look at my log. The actual workout is in the notes. I found out about the gasp reflex the hard way during a race last year. Scary as hell. I've been wondering if I'm just especially sensitive to the temperature change. But, since I was exhausted all the time when I was swimming last year, the difference between the warmup and non-warmup was noticeable, but not quite so harsh. Now it's REALLY obvious. I've even worn a heart rate monitor that shows my heart rate shooting up to about 90% or so after the first two laps. And I'm swimming slowly - REALLY slowly. For a while, I was doing a 10-15 minute unmeasured warm up, where I would just stop and piddle around whenever I got tired. Now that I'm trying to get my workouts a little more streamlined, feeling like I might drown has become a real hassle. Anyway, pulling the flip-turns from the warm-up is probably a good idea, thanks Andy. I was just hoping there was something clever I could do like warm up outside the pool, or warm up in a wetsuit to mitigate the temperature change, or wave a magic wand. Doesn't help me much for lake or ocean swimming though - except for the wand-waving.

Erica, I just peeked at your training log. You've got some pretty nice swims in recently but then nothing for quite some time. Either you haven't logged them or haven't done them.

Not logged. Only started logging them recently - I think I might have logged a few last summer, but I'm not sure.

I'm only guessing but I speculate your heart rate is more from nerves than anything else. It's the fight or flight response from being in a foreign environment.

Is that possible, if I don't feel nervous? Mentally I feel fine - just frustrated. I wouldn't totally discount this, but I would be surprised - I LOVE the water. I'm also a diver, and I've spent a lot of my life in the water (parents had a pool, grew up next to the ocean, summers on a lake, swam on teams when I was in elementary school, and a little in junior high (which, I'll admit was a LONG time ago)). Water has never felt foreign to me. I just haven't done real swimming (as opposed to messing around) since I was about 12, and I did have to spend the entire last year learning form (like most adults with a dearth of formal training, I gather).

Another idea for a warm up is to maybe start with some drills rather than any freestyle. Practice swimming on your side or finding your balance on your back. And lastly, trying to judge exactly how hard your working in the water can be difficult. When you say your swimming slow you might actually be paddling with everything you have.

This is a good idea, thank you, and that's a good point about judging effort being difficult, especially when you first get in. I could be wrong, but I like to think I can gauge reasonably decently these days based somewhat on speed of body movement, and also on how the water moves around my face when I come up to breath, and that "flying" feeling you get when the water surface moves around you quickly. I'm also pay attention to my relative speed based on people in the lanes next to me - if they're especially slow, I'll sometimes just try to hold back so that I'm pacing them.

A guy who occasional swims next to me swims slow but he takes like 40 strokes to get to the other end of the pool. I typically take 18 - 20. He's probably working harder than I am.

Ha! I love being in lanes next to people stroking like mad - makes me look good. Being in lanes next to people who are a lot better than me is nice too (I practice in a college pool a lot, so there's often team swimmers around) - I've learned a lot just from watching and imitating.