You can use the Swim Trainer app not only for guided workouts, but also for a “ordinary” free swim in a pool or in open water. To do so, choose “Free Pool Swim” or „Free Open Water Swim“ from the main menu.
For open water swims, a screen will show whether you have a GPS signal or not. According to Garmin, it can take up to 2 minutes until a signal is found. You can swim without GPS tracking, but then of course your distance will not be tracked.
For pool swims, this will lead you to short process where you can adjust the pool size (length and metric).
After this you get to the preview screen. Press the SELECT button to start the swim or the BACK button to go back to the main menu.
After a 3 second countdown the watch will start counting your time. During the swim, the display will show you your time. If you are in a pool, your current length will be shown (read more about the auto lap counter here). In open water, your distance will be displayed in meters (read more about open water distance tracking here).
When you are finished, press the SELECT button to stop and to see your result.
Press SELECT again to confirm the result. This will restart the process and opens up the preview screen again. From there you can start another swim by pressing SELECT or go back to the main menu by pressing BACK.
If you want to edit the details of the swim, press the BACK button. This will start a process where you can enter the key details of your swim (distance, stroke and, if any, used gear). Don’t worry if you tip something wrong: You can edit all the details of the free swim in the Swim Trainer app on your phone as you know it from guided workout swims. So, for example if you have done a drill, you can choose a more specific one later on in the app.
After you edited the swim details, you can go for another free swim by pressing SELECT or you can go back to main menu by pressing the BACK button.
IMPORTANT: To see these free swim logs, restart the Swim Trainer app on your smartphone or choose “refresh” from the dashboard, as you would do with a guided workout.
