Holy bejeezus ...
Diana Nyad: I broke many records in my prime as a long-distance swimmer back in the 1970’s, in my twenties. For my world record—102.5 continuous miles from the Bahamas to Florida in 1979—and other swims, such as breaking the 50-year-old mark for circling Manhattan Island ... Yet my dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida was dashed in 1978, after fighting stiff winds and huge seas for 41hrs, 49 mins, and still not reaching the Florida coast ...
... Until a year ago, I hadn’t swum a stroke for 31 years. Swimmer’s burnout gripped me to the point that I could have sworn I would never, ever swim a lap again in my life. But approaching 60 last year threw me into the existential angst of wondering what I had done with my life ... I started swimming a few laps, just to take some pressure off the knees from all the other activities I enjoy.
My workouts escalated. My motivation started to burn like a fire in my soul. One day I was driving, after a long swim, and I stopped and looked hard in the rearview mirror. And I said to myself: This is one dream I actually could go back and achieve. At 60, I could swim from Cuba to Florida. This time, without a shark cage.
But first, a little warmup swim ...
AboutDiana: On July 10th, at the age of 60, legendary open-water swimmer Diana Nyad will attempt to complete her first marathon swim in over 30 years. Nyad's triumphant return to long-distance swimming till take her 50 miles off the Florida Coast to begin a consecutive 24-hour swim through the Gulf Stream's open-water and back to the Florida shoreline, without a shark cage.
CNN Health: Diana Nyad chases a dream
Diana's Website
Wow.
I'm interested in what her recovery from the swim will be. In the pictures I saw, I noticed she was put on an IV drip pretty quickly. I'm assuming the time spent in salt water dehydrated her fairly severely, even with the fluid and food intake. I followed her blog over the weekend, where her team was posting regular updates. They explained how they would do the feeding and what interaction she could have with her team (they could get in the water with her to apply sunscreen and anti-jellyfish-sting cream, as well as anti-chafing cream. she would put the jellyfish suit and mask on when the jellyfish specialists spotted the little buggers and at night, but she didn't like wearing it, so would take it off when she could). There were team members ahead of her in the water looking for sharks and jellyfish and guiding her around the jellies (apparently very few sharks spotted and the boat had some kind of anti-shark electrical system to keep them away). The guideboats had a white streamer for her to follow, which had red lights on it at night. She did have problems with nausea and was apparently vomiting most of the way from saltwater intake. A doctor took vital signs regularly, and at one point her team skipped her feedings so she didn't have to slow down because she was getting too cold and they wanted her to keep swimming to keep warm. She even remembered the birthday of one of her crew members and stopped to tread water and make everyone sing happy birthday to him. What an amazing woman!
I'm interested in what her recovery from the swim will be. In the pictures I saw, I noticed she was put on an IV drip pretty quickly. I'm assuming the time spent in salt water dehydrated her fairly severely, even with the fluid and food intake. I followed her blog over the weekend, where her team was posting regular updates. They explained how they would do the feeding and what interaction she could have with her team (they could get in the water with her to apply sunscreen and anti-jellyfish-sting cream, as well as anti-chafing cream. she would put the jellyfish suit and mask on when the jellyfish specialists spotted the little buggers and at night, but she didn't like wearing it, so would take it off when she could). There were team members ahead of her in the water looking for sharks and jellyfish and guiding her around the jellies (apparently very few sharks spotted and the boat had some kind of anti-shark electrical system to keep them away). The guideboats had a white streamer for her to follow, which had red lights on it at night. She did have problems with nausea and was apparently vomiting most of the way from saltwater intake. A doctor took vital signs regularly, and at one point her team skipped her feedings so she didn't have to slow down because she was getting too cold and they wanted her to keep swimming to keep warm. She even remembered the birthday of one of her crew members and stopped to tread water and make everyone sing happy birthday to him. What an amazing woman!
