Julia Louis-Dreyfus

But this time, we really all happily jumped in and

floated in the gentle current, and we were all so excited and laughing and giggling together.

You know, everybody's a kid in the water.

You know, everybody's a wild swimmer, ultimately.

I'm a lap swimmer now, though.

I've gone back to swimming.

And I'm not fast, I'm not strong particularly, but it's good exercise.

And looking down at that lane line, wearing my full body protective sun suit, I'm slathered in zinc oxide in my swim cap with my special dark goggles and my swimmer's snorkel that goes up the middle of my face.

Can I say, I look goagous and I feel sublime.

I feel like a swimmer.

So how lucky I am then, today, to talk to one of the greatest swimmers who has ever lived, Diana Nyad.

I'm Julie Louis-Dreyfus, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me.

Did you know that women are incredible at endurance sports?

Yeah.

High intensity stuff usually favors raw power and youth, but endurance challenges like swimming, running, cycling, ultra distance feats,

Those reward stamina and resilience.

Turns out women have a real edge in endurance as we get older.

Research all over the place shows that mentally, women often develop an extraordinary ability to pace themselves and push through discomfort.

And that's exactly why athletes like Diana Nyad can pull off swims that feel almost or very much superhuman.

In the 70s, when women in sports were still fighting for space, Diana was out in the open ocean pushing her body farther than most people could imagine.