Julia Louis-Dreyfus

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.

She became one of the greatest long-distance swimmers in the world, breaking records, becoming a regular on Johnny Carson.

She looked so comfortable on that stage.

And then, at the very peak of her fame, she walked away.

Not another stroke for 30 years.

And here's where it gets wild.

She came back.

In her 60s, at an age when the world tells women to quiet down, slow down, and shut the hell up, she did something she couldn't do at 29.

At 64, after four failed attempts, after box jellyfish stings and the Gulf Stream's brutal cross currents and the disorientation that hits around hour 40—

She came back out of retirement and swam from Cuba to Florida.