Diana Nyad - Never Giving Up

Never Ever Give Up

My advice for living your healthiest, most fulfilling life—even if you’re not swimming across 110 miles of treacherous open ocean

By Diana Nyad ON LABOR DAY, 2013, I WALKED out of the sea onto Smathers Beach in Key West, becoming the first person ever to swim all the way across the Florida Straits from Cuba without a shark cage. It was a journey of 110.86 miles, and it took me 52 hours, 54 minutes. I was 64 years old at the time. Walking onto that Florida shore from Cuba didn’t become a reality until my fiſth try. I failed four times, and each of those attempts was public and each was crushing. I had put in hundreds of grueling, lonely training hours. A team of 44 people had sacrificed a great deal in the name of adventure, friendship and history. In the end, it was a 35-year saga of discovery, life lessons and grand experiences on an epic journey. Envision your dream and don’t give up until you get there, or at least get so close that your own effort inspires you.

The reason I was able to do something that many younger athletes had attempted and failed—myself included, back when I tried for the first time at age 28—is that I don’t believe in imposed limitations. Nobody knows the full power of the human spirit. If you are willing to accept the statistical parameters for your age, your gender, your economic situation, your whatever, you are flat-out saying you’re not interested in soaring toward your potential.

But we need to get real. The universe at times dishes out circumstances that even the toughest among us have to accept and come to terms with. My good friend, at the young age of 32, fought cancer of the worst kind with courage and not a drop of self-pity. But when the cancer in the end would not submit, my brave friend had to somehow find the grace to say good-bye to her children. We sometimes are dealt a tough road of physical and other kinds of disabilities. That’s when we still fight labels and yet somehow find elegance in determining what we can and can’t ultimately do.
Dreaming, reaching for stars and personal fulfillment are what drive the human spirit. I don’t wake up in the morning a middle-aged woman, a child of sexual abuse, a human rights activist, even though I am all of those things. I wake up a citizen of the world who refuses to let this cherished life slip quietly by. Don’t tell me I can’t touch the stars, because I just may get there one day. And on my way I’ll be tapping down into the deep well of all I can be.

Don’t Fear Failure ...

The debate about the journey versus the destination has raged for all time. Is the journey a worthy road to travel? What if you never touch that dream star of yours? I may have tried dozens of times more and never successfully completed the Cuba Swim, but I had come to peace with feeling that the journey itself was noble and worth taking, even if I never reached the destination.

During that last year of training in 2013, I kept on my desk that famous Teddy Roosevelt quote about not wanting to be a timid soul. To paraphrase, Roosevelt says he would rather be the guy in the ring who gets bloody and dirty and falls and fails over and over again. Far better, he says, to be bold and fail than to be a timid soul who is afraid and never tries at all.

Dazed when I stumbled onto that beach aſter more than two days of nonstop swimming, the first words I uttered through swollen lips were: “Never ever give up.”
I was living proof that to be fierce in your convictions, to refuse to give up on your dreams, allows you to stand tall, with no regrets that you have not lived out everything in your being.

There were thousands of screaming people on that beach to greet me. They weren’t swimming fans or even sports fans. They were people just like you and me, who fully understand and thirst to live inspired lives, who grasp that perseverance is the key to all success and fulfillment.

... And Never Let Age Define You

I truly believe that the key to well-being, aſter physical health and vitality, of course, is the drive to summon your spirit for something that moves you. Don’t let anybody else’s limitations define you. Envision your dream and don’t give up until you get there, or at least get so close that your own effort inspires you.
By the way, the second thing I said on that beach that day was: “You’re never too old to chase your dreams.”

Today, at 65, I am undoubtedly at the center of the prime of my life. As an athlete, a world-class athlete at that, I am stronger, fitter, more focused, more capable today than I was when setting records for such endurance marks as the fastest to swim around Manhattan Island at the age of 25, 40 long (or short) years ago.

Perhaps we can all of us agree that we mature and evolve for the better in all kinds of ways as we age. We have more perspective; the clock ticking exponentially faster year by year makes us want to grab on to our precious days, one by one. Our sense of appreciation for life and this beautiful blue jewel Planet Earth heightens. So it’s easy to understand an emotional and psychological prime at 65—for athletes and nonathletes alike.

Make this the prime of your life, whatever age you are, whatever life circumstances you find yourself in. It’s a one-way street we’re all traveling, each and every one of us. What a shame not to take this one walkthrough of ours with great gusto. It’s up to each of us to find a way toward whatever shore looms in our dreams.

Widely known as one of the world’s greatest endurance athletes, Diana Nyad inspired millions at 64 with the record-breaking swim from Cuba to Florida described in this essay. Previous feats include circling Manhattan and swimming 102 miles from the Bahamas to Florida.
Her next challenge? Getting a million people to join her planned journey across America—called The Walk—to draw attention to obesity and related illnesses and to help create social change. Her latest book, a memoir called Find a Way: The Diana Nyad Story: One Wild and Precious Life, will be published this fall.

In February she launched a one-woman show, Onward!, in Key West. Diana will tour her stage show around the country and, as we have come to expect, has ambitions to hit the big time—Broadway. For more on Diana, visit diananyad.com.

Exert from Merril Lynch Article

When Great Swim Coaches go to the 'Big Pool'

Coach Rathke

I really don't recall when Brian Rathke become a role model, it seemed like he was there forever sometimes boldly in front and other time quietly in the background, but always there. 

Somewhere in those early AAU age group years he kept order. Those formative silly days, he corralled us from running around the pool deck, stopped us from snapping each other with towels to often, kept the atomic sit-ups and if got into real trouble the famous "60 second" treatment wasn't far behind. By todays standards... well thats something we swimmers keep to ourselves. Lets suffice it to say with Brian you knew where the rules were and where you stood.

As we got older he kept us on task both in school and in the pool, keeping us focused on doing well while teaching us life lessons. He used swimming as a teaching tool to focus us on how to achieve goals, do well in life, sometimes outside of our comfort zone.

I remember early on learning that he was one of the fastest 50 butter flyers in the world, until this guy named Mark Spitz came along. I was always awed by this and impressed as he would challenge us kids to races and easily whack us off one at a time. I don't think anyone ever beat him? 

At the same time he somehow understood that fun and tradition was essential to life, a way to mark our path for others to follow. He let us play, grow, and have fun. Yet you always knew he expected more, better, faster. Somehow he fostered a group of kids into fierce competitors that respected each other making us into winners with the winningest duel meet record in the history of Indiana and perhaps the country. Yet none of us were olympians, a few state champions, but always a team. Lets be honest we were average kids he molded into winners.

As we graduated and went our own ways, some kept in touch regularly, others less so but as the years came on and we would run into one another the conversation would naturally drift back to coach. What’s he up to, how’s he doing, still swimming – nope but his kids are, who’s winning for him now, etc. Some went on to coach and even became more successful. Was he the only influence? Of course not.  Chris Shorthouse himself a kind persistent leader was always present. Older swimmers who learned under Brian gave lessons to us younger kids along the way, names like Gibson, Neff, and Fult to name a few.

Swimming is one of the unique activities in life that forces someone to display themselves publicly forcing you to become confident, a better human both inside and out. Bryan took each one of us, like an unpainted canvass and added color, texture, waves. Working with parents, teachers, and friends to support and guide us to adulthood.

Nowhere across this spectrum of lives do you find a loser, a failure. Sure we are all different but thats life. That’s really the amazing takeaway.

Thank you coach. Ill see you someday, but not just yet, Ive got some more laps to swim.

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the water. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions. 

Brian saw each of us perhaps like a Starfish?

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching.  As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea.  The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning!  May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.” The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”

Adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)

10,000 for Fun

Decided that an early winter endurance test of my training might be fun and something different to see how both physical as well as the mental training (i.e. spending long periods of time going back and forth in a pool) are shaping up. Decided to try the 100 x 100 yards (10,000 yards or 5.6 miles) race at the Latoff Chicago YMCA on December 27th. I figure it should take me a little over three hours at a relaxed pace of 1:30 per. This should be simple for the first 50-60 but later as the mind begins to tire I suspect it will become a little harder, but thats the point, work on the mental toughness since 400 laps.

Training otherwise keeps plugging along at 20k yards this past week.  Adding weights has gotten my shoulders sore but working through it. Last night at practice we did a whole workout in sweat shirts. I brought along my trusty old heavy duty Indiana sweatshirt (what the hell was I thinking??). Needless to say I felt like a drowning rat but managed to keep going through 4000 yards (2+ miles). for awhile I thought i was back in Goshen swimming a "Rathke" practice with Steve Conder in lane 1?