I am looking to register for my first tri (olympic distance), and on the registration it asks for estimated swim time. I have no idea what my pace would be. I am a pretty strong swimmer as far as recreational swimming goes, but have not a clue what kind of pace I could keep for a mile. How could I guess at it? I am generally middle of the pack in 5 and 10ks that I have done, and keep about a 17mph (after about 4 months of riding) pace on the bike just to give yall an idea of my fitness level. The race is in July. I figure I will start doing some swimming whenever pools start opening up around here (late April), and until then spend a lot of time on the bike and pounding the pavement.

Use this;

Maybe time yourself over a 1.5km continous swim? By way of general advice, I've learnt to seed myself on the fast side as plenty of others overestimate their ability and you end up having to swim through a logjam if you're conservative. If you're a strong swimmer, go with the fast guys and try to hang on their feet.

Irene. Solid race and really impressive run! It must have been frustrating waiting for those pizza deliveries in T1 & T2...or were those power naps?

To the OP. Pick a number between 30 & 40. That's probably somewhere in the ballpark.

^^This!