Pace the Penguin Shares It Out

Waddling steadily along Lane Four is Pace, a tidy little penguin who never hurries and never dawdles — she moves at exactly the same speed the whole way. That is her whole gift: pace is about steadiness measured fairly, and she teaches swimmers how to find their unit rate.

A young swimmer was puzzling over two swims. “I did 200 metres in 3 minutes yesterday, and 400 metres in 6 minutes today. Which was faster?” The totals looked different, so he couldn’t tell. Pace slid over on her belly. “You can’t compare a 200 to a 400 straight across,” she said. “You have to share the time out per 100 metres — the time for one unit. Then it’s a fair race.”

She showed him. “3 minutes over 200 metres — that’s 1.5 minutes for each 100. And 6 minutes over 400 metres — also 1.5 minutes per 100.” His eyes widened. “So they were the same pace!” “Exactly,” Pace nodded. “The totals hid it. The per-100 rate revealed it. That’s what a unit rate does — it puts different swims on the same footing.” She never made him feel silly for being fooled by the totals; the totals fool everyone.

Say it with Pace, out loud: “Spread your time over each hundred you swim — that’s your pace, steady and trim.”

He started tracking his pace per 100 after every swim, and suddenly he could see real progress that raw totals had hidden. “Now I know when I’m actually getting faster,” he said. Pace gave a proud little flap. “And you’re only ever racing your own last pace — that’s the fair one.”

That is Pace’s move. Don’t compare raw totals of different lengths — divide your time by the distance in hundreds to get your time per 100 metres. That unit rate is steady, fair, and comparable, so you can finally see your true speed.