Chapter 1: What motivated Diana Nyad to pursue extreme swimming later in life?
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Head to RatioFood.com to find a retailer near you. Lemonada I think I was three or four when I learned how to swim in New York City. I remember my mom would sit on the edge of the pool with her legs dangling into the water from her knees down, and I would sit on my mom's feet, and her legs were a little prickly because she shaved them.
I remember that vividly, and that I couldn't wait to grow up to shave my legs and have them be all prickly. Which is a funny thing to think when you are three or four years old. I mean, but that's how much I wanted to grow up. Anyway, she'd bounce me up and down in the water while I waited for my lesson to start. My mom can't remember, and I was really tiny, so I can't remember.
But I think it might have been at the 92nd Street Young Men's Hebrew Association pool. Not really sure. But I do remember that the whole building smelled like chlorine. You know that smell. And that I really did love to swim from the very start. When I was pregnant, and I was absolutely enormous with my first son, Henry, I turned to swimming for relief. Oh, boy. And it was a relief.
Wading into a pool was just magical because it made me cool. and comfortable. I was so uncomfortable and weightless. And I remember wondering if the strokes, going back and forth, you know, doing laps, if the strokes were soothing to the baby inside of me.
And I have a feeling that they were because now, 30 years later, that baby, he's a surfer, and he's in the ocean almost every single day, which is so funny. So when the boys were little, I really wanted them to learn how to swim. And they learned how to swim at a very young age. They had a teacher who was very strict. She was really kind of mean sometimes.
But she was a great swim teacher because she was so tough. And there was no negotiation, no nothing. She didn't baby them. And I was all down for that because I lived in fear of the kids not knowing how to swim and being near a pool at a friend's house or whatever. So that's why I endured her toughness.
And what the kids loved about taking swimming lessons with her was the first thing she taught them in the pool was what to do if you got in trouble. And so you would turn over, lie on your back, put your chin up. Then you would call, help, help. And then you would find your way to the edge of the pool and try to hold on to the pool. So they would play this sort of SOS game all the time.
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Chapter 2: How does Diana Nyad define obsession and its role in her achievements?
All the way.
You are so lucky. I lift the same amount of weights. But you know what? It's not luck. It's because maybe there's some genetics. Maybe that's lucky. But when I was five years old until now, 76, I never had a day off. You know, I've always sort of honored, what do they call it, the temple of the body. And so I've always been in motion and pushing hard and being fairly extreme.
So it's not just I arrived at 76 and, oh, you're so lucky to feel good. I worked at getting to feel this good.
So does this mean, let's just get into the weeds of that for a second. Does that mean that you work out every day? Every day.
Every day. I mean, you know, I've had a couple of flus through the years. I've been on planes, you know, for 20 hours at a time. But even there, even in the airport lounge, you know, I'll go to a corner and, you know, knock off several push-ups and sit-ups and sit on the wall and, you know, all that.
So never a day goes by that I'm not in some kind of motion, if not intense for hours if I have that time, but just a little something every single day. What about the idea of rest? No. You know, when you're training hard, if you're an athlete really training for something, rest is part of the equation.
Of course it is because without that, it leads to injuries and, you know, a level of fatigue that is negative. But as a general rule, I say at least some movement, you know, is required for me every single day.
Every single day. Yeah. And just because I'm just personally curious, like for yourself, on an average day, what's your ā What is your exercise routine, regime, and how long is it for on an average day?
An average day. Well, I'll give you an example, but I must say that Tuesdays and Fridays are extreme.
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Chapter 3: What lessons did Diana learn from her early swimming experiences?
I was shamed. And I think it's true with women in careers also to feel like I don't deserve to speak up here. I'm going to lose my whole career. Yeah. So I think the silencing and the shaming is coming to an end.
Yes, I hope you're right. Shame is a very powerful feeling and can get its tentacles into you in a way that can be very paralyzing. But when you look back on that period of time now and that abuse, which, by the way, I want to applaud you for speaking so candidly about because I know it's helpful to I was about to say to people who are victims of abuse, but it goes well beyond that.
Shedding light on your experiences is a very brave thing to do, and it's very good for the universe. Having said that, how do you see its impact, if you don't mind talking about it, on your career and your life, that abuse?
You know, I don't think it impacted my career at all. But personally, I can tell you at this, at age 76, even though I am so fortunate to live the life I have, I've had nothing but privilege throughout my life. I'm loved by people whom I love. But... The shaming of it is still, Julia, it still ripples under the surface.
I can find myself, if a stupid thing happens, I'm carrying groceries in, okay, to the house, and I drop a bag, and all the apples roll all over the sidewalk. I start using the angry and abusive language that that coach used on me 65 years ago. So it's aā It's a cycle that doesn't ā like people often say, well, you must be over that by now.
There's no such thing as over that, you know, if you've been through real trauma. You deal with it. You find your strength. But it's not like you're over it. So that incident and those incidents of my teenage years, they ripple underneath in a subtle way, but they're still there.
So to that end then, what advice might you have for ā Those people who are trying to sort of unshackle themselves from a history of abuse. Is there advice you have for navigating the unshackling?
Well, I guess this isāyeah, this is going to be such a facile thing to say, but the truth isā When you get to the end of your life, you know, it's like Mary Oliver has called us, this one wild and precious life that every one of us has. You get to your life and you say, why didn't I deal with that trauma?
So I try to get to the end of every day, Julia, when my head hits the pillow, I say to myself, could I have done any more? Could I have been more caring to my friend? Could I have taken my dog to the beach at sunrise instead of working out and giving him that thrill? I try to go to bed every night, which means I want to go to bed on that last day of my life and say, I couldn't do everything.
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Chapter 4: How did Diana Nyad's return to swimming impact her physically and mentally?
Oh, you'll have to forgive me. I know you've come a long way from New York, but today is the first day that my husband doesn't recognize me. And we just went silent. And we said, you take good care of yourself. We're so sorry. We started to walk away and she called us back. She said, no, you know what would make me feel good? I'd like to make you guys breakfast. Oh, I can't believe this.
So the three of us went in. We sat around her stool. She made a loaf of sourdough bread. She made a fienzer omelet. And she didn't do the interview that day. She didn't want to. But she did later. Did you get her cooking for you on camera? No, she didn't want that. She didn't want us to open our bags. She just wanted to have a human moment. And I'll never forget it.
Oh, that is unbelievably tender and touching. Yes. Yeah, and it wasn't necessary to film it, you know.
So wait, what kind of omelette did you say?
I think it was Fienneserbe, you know, like a fine herb omelette.
Oh, fine herb, uh-huh, yes. Fienneserbe, yeah. And you were out publicly as being gay when you started your broadcast career, right?
Yeah, oh, earlier than that. I think by 1972 I was out.
Yeah, but even beforeā Well, so canāpleaseā Please unpack that a little bit because I would think that that was a rarity back in the early 70s and certainly in the early 80s. And what was that experience like for you to come out publicly at that time versus like now?
You know, honestly, it was a nothing. I mean, I just always have beenāwe mentioned in the very beginning about physical limitations and age limitations. And so I've been gay, I'm sure, if I really could dig it back, since fifth grade. But, you know, in my own mind, knowing it and being able to speak it out, it was when I was about 21, which was the early 70s. And I've never had a problem.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did Diana face during her Cuba to Florida swim attempts?
During those 30 years... From my turning 30 to my turning 60, I was a big bike rider, did a 100-mile bike ride every Friday, did kick-ass gym workouts, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I was physical, and I was in shape, but I was no longer a swimmer. And swimmers have very specific muscles, the lats, the shoulders, the triceps, that have nothing to do with your going out and running marathons.
You know, and riding your bike somewhere. So I'll tell you, those first few months, once I made the commitment to see if I was capable of this, chasing this dream again, I was underwater. I was riding low in the water, and I would sit in my car with giant ice bags on my shoulders when I was done. With just a four-hour swim, and I'd fall asleep for hours. I'd be so knocked out.
But I stuck with it. And month by month, week by week, I started getting there, and I became a swimmer again. But it wasn't overnight, that's for sure. How long did it actually take for you to get to a good point? I'd say by December. So that was four months. I started at a couple hours and I moved to four hours. And by December, I was doing 12-hour swims in a pool.
Not yet in the open ocean, but in a pool. 12 hours, which is tough on the shoulders. You're definitely going to be developing the swimmer's body in 12 hours a day.
Can I tell you something? In my life, I swim sometimes. I do laps. And I... I feel like such a nothing talking to you because, I mean, like I feel really good if I swim a mile. Like that is a really good day for me. You know what? That is good. Bravo. I say great for you. Yay. That makes me feel so good.
So you tried it four times in total before your fifth time when you swam from Cuba to Florida and you succeeded. You've talked a lot about your ability to disassociate from pain, you know, during your long swims. Yeah. I'm really interested to know how your brain works at, you know, hour 20 versus hour 40, right? Versus hour 50, you know, what's happening to your brain, if you can recall.
But also, are there times in your life now when sort of disassociating is useful for you?
Yeah, I think disassociation, you know, I'm not sure what a clinical psychologist would say about this. I'm not sure either. Okay, so good. We're just too lame in talking. Right. I think that disassociation can take on a positive side of the coin, which is sharp focus. So disassociation means you're not paying attention to some of those other aspects at the moment.
You're leaving them aside, and you're right in this moment. So just pictureā I wonder if you could just, you know, as an actor, you could do this. Let's say you're going to sit in that chair right where you are at your microphone for 53 hours. And we're going to give you some water. We're going to allow you to go to the bathroom every now and then, maybe a little bit of food.
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Chapter 6: How did Diana's relationship with her trainer Bonnie evolve over the years?
And then I'll count the 900 for you.
You think you could? Could you do 100 burpees? Yes. Wow. But I can't go beyond that. I'd like to be the judge of that. I'd like to see that because I doubt it.
Oh, fuck. I feel like we're going to do it. You doubt that I can do 100? Yeah, I doubt it. Okay. Okay, okay. That's not easy. First of all, may I say fuck you to you, Diane and I are. Oh, the ultimate compliment. The ultimate compliment is right. I've never said that to any guests on this show in my whole life.
When Bonnie says later, how'd the interview go? I said, it was so successful. In the last five minutes, Julia said, yeah, well, fuck you, Diane and I. And I thought, yes, we've arrived.
Oh, my gosh. I have a couple of quick questions to ask you before we end our conversation, which I've enjoyed tremendously. Me too, Julia. Is there something that you will go back, Diana Nyad, and tell yourself at the age of 21?
You know what? I'm just going to be frank with you. Yes. I rail against that question.
Do it.
Because life doesn't work that way. By the way, I didn't say these questions were how life worked. Well, I can't entertain the concept of talking to my 21-year-old self. That person had to gain her own knowledge at her own time. And so I wish I could travel in a time machine.
And go back and tell my 21-year-old self to shape up and to be more this or that and get over that sexual abuse bullshit and all that stuff. But I can't. I can only live my life as I go along. Just as if I stand up in front of a group of 21-year-olds as opposed to usually it's middle-aged people I'm speaking to.
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Chapter 7: What advice does Diana Nyad have for those facing personal challenges?
Perfect. Oh, my God. So they saw my hands. And there was one time that Gracie, I was sitting with a friend. Who's your granddaughter, Gracie? Yes. And so we were having lunch, and we were talking about brains. And she had seen a picture of brains. And then she said, and they're all wrinkled. And then she looked over at us. She said, like you two. Incredible. It's so wonderful when...
When you can just say things out, you know, and they're not ā and you know that they're genuine. They're not meant to hurt you. They're meant to describe what you see.
Yeah, completely. Yeah. They're pure.
Yeah.
They're pure of heart is what they are. Yeah. Coming from little kids. Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
All right, Mama, I'm going to say goodbye to you. I love you.
I love you, sweetheart. So keep in touch and call me often.
I will. I'll call you even later today. Okay. I love you. Love you. Bye. Bye. Bye. There's more wiser than me with Lemonada Premium. You can now listen to every episode ad-free, plus subscribers also get access to exclusive bonus interview excerpts from each guest.
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