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@dooks
i hurt my shoulder when i was training for a 5k last year. swimmer's shoulder apparently. http://www.nismat.org/traintip/swimmershld got so i couldn't hold a pint. yeah, serious. had to stop for a bit. can manage multiple pints now.
when i was hard into training for a goal i got angry in the pool too (so many splashy macho fucktards) but since i've gone back to swimming for the joy of it i've been much more zen about the whole thing. still not in shape enough right now to do a 5k... well maybe but not enough to do it justice.
oh, my other tip would be (unless you're training) don't count laps. these days i just swim and check the clock at about 20 minute intervals. usually do about 40 minutes then rest a few then sprint a bit, warm down and get out. counting is deadly.
this book helped me a lot. http://www.amazon.com/Art-Swimming-Direction-Alexander-Technique/dp/1853980951
there's some guff in it but the single biggest breakthough for me was *learning to let my breathing dictate the pace rather than the other way round. **that was the key. *totally changed the way i thought about swimming and suddenly instead of doing 20 or 30 laps i was doing 100 or 150.
only then was i really able to start concentrating on efficiency and technique in a way that i couldn't when i was purple-faced thrashing and struggling for air.
weird how one sentence in a cheesy "how to swim" manual can do all that to your life. but it did.