Celebrating Diana Nyad's Inspirational Swim

“It’s the journey. It’s not the destination. It’s all the self-discovery and the wonderful team.”

-  Diana Nyad

Trying to balance my schedule between work, swim and my social life, has meant a bit of delinquency in updating this blog.

So much has happened in the world of swimming that has gone undocumented but I need to take some time and reflect on Diana Nyad’s recent achievement in finally completing her long-time goal of swimming the 110 miles between Florida and Cuba without a shark cage, clocking it at 52 hours and 54 minutes, at the age of 64!

I love the beach, but admittedly, my idea of hanging out in the ocean is snorkeling, maybe an hour of paddle boarding and playing by the surf and sand, then happily retreating to my towel or lawn chair with a ice-cold beverage often served with an umbrella.  I do love playing in seawater, and we all know just how much I love to swim, but I’ve learned open water swimming and I are just not friends! I prefer the comfort of the lap pool and the familiar smell of chlorine, and being able to distinctly stare at a black line at the bottom of the pool.

I do admire Diana Nyad’s achievement on Monday.  She made several statements with what she achieved:

1.     Never every give up on your dreams! A strong statement considering this was her fifth attempt, and her previous attempts were life threatening – sharks, fatal jellyfish stings, dehydration, and rough currents!

2.     Age is nothing but a number! She achieved this feat at the age of 64!!! Somewhere in between trying to achieve this goal, she did take a 30-year break from the sport!

3.     Women are athletes! Growing up people told her “A girl can’t be an athlete.” Thank you Diana for being radically individual, irreverent, defiant and breaking the glass ceiling for women!

As a woman, a swimmer, and someone who shares in having a rough childhood, there is so much about Diana Nyad’s story and achievements that truly inspire me.  There are a lot of younger swimmers on my team, many are in there 20’s, and have swam competitively throughout high school and college. That is most definitely not my story. I swam as a child and always enjoyed the water, but I took up competitive swimming at the age of 32, when I joined Masters last Christmas. I started at the beginner’s lane, and could barely complete the practice sets.

Going into my 9 months of masters swimming, there has been great improvement, lots of personal bests to boast about, two good meets where I performed extremely well and lately I’m moving myself two lanes over and swimming close to 4000 yards each practice. I’m still desperately trying to drop weight, and most certainly improve on my times. The journey hasn’t been easy and to get better you have to push yourself to the outmost limits – mentally, physically and emotionally, but you just have to keep jumping back in the water over and over again.

Why would Diana Nyad try to fulfill this goal, especially since the last four attempts have almost cost her life? What is the pay off? Fame and fortune? 

Something I have learned about swimmers is that we absolutely love this sport and the feel of the water. This sport has a way of giving back to you in ways you can't possibly imagine. It may seem like a solitary sport, but there’s a team bond that is quite special. Swimming is not a money making sport. It is not a mainstream, spectator sport that can guarantee you millions in professional endorsements, like golf, football, basketball, baseball and soccer. The breakthrough of Michael Phelps is a rarity and his whole mission was to change the sport of swimming, and he has. But ever imagine what if Michael didn’t break Mark Spitz’s record, or achieved becoming the greatest Olympian of all time? Would Michael Phelps still jump in a pool and swim? Absolutely.  Jumping in the pool regularly after retirement is proof enough. But, we all do it because we love the sport and being in the water is home.

I get why Diana Nyad would jump back in five times, and why this dream kept her up at night.

It’s the same reasons why 7:30 PM on a weeknight happens to be my dreaded and favorite hour. Also the reason why I don’t go out partying on a Friday night, because I look forward to Saturday’s at 5:30 AM. Two weeks of pool shut down drove me close to insanity, not because of the water, because I missed my coaches and teammates.

I have to admit 52 hours – that’s my total pool swimming hours in 30 days! I can’t imagine the mental concentration and non-stop swimming in an ocean with the threat of sharks and jellyfish. To Diana Nyad – Congratulations and thank you for being a great inspiration. Cheers!