Penny Heyns: Swim Your Own Race

In 1994, I found myself representing South Africa internationally for only the second time in my career. I had just come off of the Commonwealth Games where I was fortunate enough to win a bronze medal in the 100 metre breaststroke. Naturally, coming out of such a swim and going on to the world championships in Rome, I was extremely excited and confident, hoping that I would at least make the final.

But the real goal was that I would just improve my time, set a new South African record and most importantly, learn something that I could use in preparation for the Atlanta Olympics.

In the morning with the heats of the 100 breaststroke, I focused on the details of my stroke and made sure I swam my own race. I executed every single stroke to the best of my ability. I made sure that my kicks off the wall were solid and streamlined and that I was squeezing my feet together at the end of every kick cycle, making sure that there were no gaps in my performance. At the end of that race I touched in a new South African record and a personal best time, but the real highlight was that I qualified second going into the final that evening.

Of course I was very excited. I left the pool, went up into the stands, spoke to my parents and the South African coaches and as usual I asked them what they thought. Their answer was, “Penny, Penny, you’re going to win tonight”. I thought this was a pretty good idea. I left the pool and went back to the hotel.

My coach, Jan Bidrman, originally from Czech Republic, was visiting with his family that summer and therefore not present at the competition. Once back at the hotel I called Jan to discuss my morning swim. As I explained the race he was very excited, very proud and then he asked me an important question, “what’s your goal and plan for tonight? How are you going to swim the final?”

I told him that my goal was, in accordance with the response from the South African coaches, to win the race. Jan’s answer to me was, “No, Penny. You won’t win but if you focus on yourself, if you swim your own race and make sure that you pay attention to the details, if you do the things that you’ve practised doing day in and day out in training, those things that you have control over… if you do them well, then the sum total will culminate in a personal best swim. And if you swim a personal best time, you could very well end up with a bronze medal”. Jan told me that top six should be my goal but most importantly, I was to ‘swim my own race’.

I listened to what he had to say but wasn’t too excited. Naturally you don’t like hearing that your coach doesn’t think you can win. But he was always realistic and that’s what made him a great coach. I left the hotel, went back to the pool that evening and began my warm up. As I was swimming I remember focusing on the details of my stroke and making sure that those were correct.

At the start of the 100 breaststroke, I got up in lane 5 and next to me in lane 4 was the fastest cede of the event, Sam Riley the Australian. Now Sam had just won the 100 and 200 at the Commonwealth Games with times very close to the world records. I knew that if I wanted to win, she was the girl to beat, but remember, I’m supposed to swim my own race.

As we took our marks, went down, the gun went off and we dove into the water. With the very first stroke, Sam pulled away. As much as I didn’t want to, I caught a glimpse of her out the corner of my eye and as I saw how she shot ahead, I tried to catch her. And in trying to catch her I started making mistakes. The more I tried to catch Sam, the more mistakes I was making and the further ahead she was getting. To cut a long story short, by the end of the race, Sam touched in a new world record time. I touched in 6^th place, in a time that was 1.5 seconds slower than my morning swim.

The real heartbreaker though was the girl who won the bronze medal. She was a Chinese girl and swam 1 full second slower than I had swum in the morning. In other words, if I had swum my own race, if I had focused on the details, on doing the things that I had control over …. to the best of my ability, focusing on what I could do best, I might have swum a personal best time and I would have had the bronze.

It appears Jan was right. I should have swum my own race.

The question is, what do you do in those circumstances, when you’ve set goals and worked really hard to achieve them? When you’ve put your heart and soul into something, then get distracted and don’t achieve your goals? What do you do when you feel like you’ve failed?

Naturally I was downhearted when I left the pool. I felt very upset. I didn’t cry because my mom had always taught me that good sportsmanship is most important and to never cry about a race. As I sat down to discuss the race with my parents, I remember saying to my mom, “I’ve done the best any South African has done up until now and I think its time to retire”. This was the second time in my career I felt like this.

My mother wisely said to me, “Penny, it’s the choices you make in times like these, times of disappointment, that will determine the success of your tomorrows and ultimately, your destiny. Make sure you make the right choice. You have two choices here, you can either allow the sense of failure and disappointment to get to you, and give up and come home to South Africa and retire, or you can choose to make your failures your stepping stones onto tomorrow’s successes”.

I didn’t necessarily like what my mother had said but the more I began to think about it, the more I realised she was right. And so I took the decision to really analyse that swim, to be brave enough to face my mistakes and to realise what I could do better if I was prepared to learn from it. And even more importantly, to learn from those around me like Sam Riley, the examples of excellence at the time.

You see, life is like that sometimes. I believe God has created you to do something unique and special. Sometimes your talents are a clue to that something special that you are to do or become. Your talents and the opportunities you receive in life, will guide you toward fulfilling your unique potential, however, it is exactly your uniqueness that requires of you to ‘swim your own race’ in life, if you are to succeed.

All of us experience disappointments from time to time, regardless of how hard we have worked and prepared. However, much of the time that happens because we’re so busy looking around. So few of us are able to focus and do the things that God has called us to do without comparing our lifestyles, our goals and progress to those around us. We are called to swim our own race whether it be in your spiritual walk, in your athletic career, in business, in school etc.

You are called, in fact required, to swim your own race. And if we look around and try to beat those around us or measure up to those around us, trying to live our lives, or swim our race, according to the plan that they have, we’ll never achieve the purpose that God has for our lives.

Remember, because your purpose and potential is individual and unique, only you can live the dream, your destiny, which God has intended for your life. True success, true victory in life, is the ability to know with honest certainty, that you have delivered your utmost best, that you have been excellent in all that you do and that you have been true to yourself because you have remained diligently focussed on swimming your own race.

May you all learn and remember to ‘Swim your own Race’ and may your true potential be fulfilled. God bless!