• Submitted by: manso
• Sports
• 08 / 15 / 2010

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From 1968 to 1979, Diana Nyad, a long-distance swimmer, set several world records, including circling Manhattan in 7 hours 57 seconds in 1975. Before this month is out, Nyad, 60, plans to step off the shores of Cuba, near Havana, and swim 103 miles to Key West.

In August 1978, Nyad tried the same swim and was pulled from the raging seas after nearly 42 hours. While waiting for the arrival of a license from Cuba, which she needs to start on its soil, Nyad sat for an interview in Los Angeles.
Getty Images for W.S.F.

Diana Nyad did not reach Florida in 1978.

KAREN CROUSE

Q. Why this swim and why now?

A. Last summer, I was turning 60 and I was thinking, I don’t want to be 60. Sixty is old! What happened to my life? What have I done? Who am I? What have I become? I started thinking I have to be graceful with it, and one of the lessons I’ve never learned well is you can’t undo your past. You’ve just got to learn some lessons from it all and embrace today and move forward.

Ironically, at the same time I was giving myself this life lesson, I thought to myself, but wait a second. There’s actually something I could go back and do. I didn’t make it from Cuba to Florida when I was 29 years old. Could this possibly be in me?

Q. Is it true that you stopped swimming after 1979?

A. Not one stroke. I took 31 years, didn’t swim a stroke anywhere except for boogie boarding in the ocean. I thought I was done with all the beautiful meditation of swimming. I couldn’t find that anymore. So last summer, I quietly just went to a little country club pool and I would swim like 22 minutes. You can’t believe how slowly. Ladies doing sidestroke were going past me.

Then I started to escalate. I started feeling stronger, I started lifting weights, and along about October, I started doing 20,000-meter swims in the pool, six-hour swims, crazy swims. Then in January I went to Mexico and did my first ocean swim. It was a raging day. It was cold, I did a six-and-a-half-hour swim, and when I got done, I knew I had it in my spirit and had it in my body to dedicate myself to the Cuba-to-Florida swim.

Q. Are you coming at this swim from a different place emotionally than in 1978?

A. So different. To be molested as a child by the person I put all my faith in, all my trust in — my swim coach — I think it really rocked the cells of my little being. In my 20s, I was so driven to be special. I just had to prove to myself first and my world that I can do this and I’m capable of that and you’ve got to look at me. I’m not just a sexual molestee. That’s not my definition. I don’t want to be that.

And you know what? It’s a lot of years gone by and I would hope by now I’m much more secure. I’m not looking for that special thing. There is some ego to this swim. I want to make it. I want to be the only person to do it. But more than that, it’s about showing that 60’s not old. I refuse to be irrelevant at this age.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 15, 2010, on page SP11 of the New York edition.

By KAREN CROUSE

Published: August 14, 2010

Source: www.nytimes.com/