I have been swimming twice a week now. This morning I swam 1600 yards in about 35 minutes. Half of that was breast stroke, half was front crawl*. My problem right now is I don't know if I should be focusing on breast stroke or crawl.

I can breast stroke forever, but it's probably only about 2/3 as fast as my crawl over a short distance. But by doing the front crawl I think I'm tiring myself out. 1600 yards in 35 minutes is a slower pace than when I was swimming a greater proportion of breast stroke.

I think it's a technique problem, and I think that if I make my front crawl more efficient I can get a speed boost and not burn out at the end of the swim. I'm going to continue working on the crawl for the next few weeks and see how it goes, then I'll have to make a decision on which to focus on for the race.

Does anybody have any advice on how to swim front crawl for a long distance?

* I called the 'freestyle' stroke to one of my American friends 'front crawl' and he didn't know what I was talking about. Is that a Canadian thing? Or do other people call it front crawl?