• Submitted by: admin
• Sports
• 07 / 20 / 2010

Diana Nyad is an International Swimming Hall of Fame member who made a splash in 1979 for swimming the more than 100 miles from the Bahamas to Florida.

Next month, at the age of 60, she’s going for her second attempt to swim from the shore of Florida to the coast of Cuba.

Nyad talks with host Michel Martin about her planned swim, and how she refuses to let her age keep her out of the water.

MICHEL MARTIN, host:

Now to the athlete who's been putting in training swims of 10 hours, 15 hours, even a 24-hour swim recently in preparation for her second attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida.

Ms. NYAD: Well, I'm curious how that came about. You just grew up in an area where it wasn't part of the culture or what?

MARTIN: Yeah, pretty much. There was not access to a pool and I wanted my children to swim and as is so often the case, I thought to myself, wait a minute, I'm not going to get them to do something I don't know how to do. And what if something happens to them, I need to be able to deal with it. So there you go.

Ms. NYAD: I am from New York City and lived in New York, you know, most of my adult life. And in New York City, I mean, you're right you're there with the rivers, the oceans. There are just hundreds of thousands of people in that urban culture who have never swam in their lives and it's just amazing to me.

MARTIN: I'm from New York and I grew up, as you mentioned, surrounded by rivers and it never occurred to any of us to get in any of them. So there you go. But anyway, let's talk about you.

Ms. NYAD: Okay.

MARTIN: You've held a bunch of world records, including for that Bahama swim and for circling the island of Manhattan in the shortest time. So, why now this Cuba to Florida swim now?

Ms. NYAD: Well, you know, as you pose it, well, she didn't make it back then, so it still looms out there as this, you know, the one missing piece to a pretty good career. And, yeah, it's true.

That's an authentic storyline. But honestly, Michel, what really happened, what's really at the heart of this for me is that a year ago now, I was just about to turn 60, and I was starting to just be, you know, burdened down by this existential angst of what have I done with my life?

And I don't mean in terms of accomplishments. Who have I become? You know, what have I really learned? Who have I been, you know, to my communities, to society at large? How much time is there left? My mom had just passed away at the age of 82. And I thought, you know, life is, you blink. Sixty, I'm going to blink and I'll be 82 and gone.

And so I was beginning to think, I don't want to feel 60 and that all my good days are behind me. I don't want, like, millions of people my age to feel disenfranchised and, you know, no longer vital. It's more about feeling strong at 60 and showing it.

MARTIN: Well, can you just describe physically what this entails? I know that you've lost 29 pounds in the 42 hours of your first try. Can you even give voice to just what it feels like, the exhaustion, the pain, the exhilaration, any of that?

Ms. NYAD: Yeah, you know, it's a good question. I keep saying that it's more of an expedition than anything else. It's, like, I have interviewed some of the top sports nutritionists in the world who deal with the top mountain climbers, marathon runners, you know, people whom I respect tremendously. And they'll say to me, this is eccentric. Your body is in an absolute flex. Almost every muscle of the body is working.

So, as I said, I would interview all these, you know, top notch sports nutritionists and they would scratch their heads and say, you know, we're scientists, we've dealt with Lance Armstrong, you know, all these top people, but this, nobody does this. It's an anomaly.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. NYAD: You know, you probably know more than we do. If peanut butter makes you feel good, if I were you, I'd just stick with peanut butter.

MARTIN: So you're expecting to swim for realistically you're talking 70 hours, 80 hours.

Ms. NYAD: I'm hoping I can do it in about 65 hours. I hope it's not going to be 70, 80, but you know what? Once I step in that shore, this is the last time, Michel. I'm not going to come back to you at 90 and say I'm going to, okay, 30 years have gone by, I'm going to try it again. This is it. And when I walk off that shore, I don't care how long it takes, I am going to get over to Florida.

MARTIN: Is there some significance of the Cuba to Florida swim. You know, why that run? Or is it just because you tried it before?

Ms. NYAD: No. There is. There was significance for me back then and there is significance now. Cuba, just like the English Channel, was a magical place and way back in 1875, the first man who swam it, he knows the history. You know, he's an Englishman who grew up studying the Battle of Hastings. And everybody knows, you know, that stretch of water between the English Isles, the British Isles and the continent of Europe.

Well, here we are in the United States and what famous body of water sitting off the United States could be more significant politically, socially, anecdotally than the island of Cuba?

Diana Nyad, thank you.

Ms. NYAD: Thank you, Michel.

Source: www.npr.org/