Diana Nyad is Swimming (again)

Here it is an early Sunday morning with relatively calm wind and sea conditions.  I am puttering around my house doing chores, cleaning and organizing things.  My benign day is going by as someone I greatly admire is facing probably the biggest challenge of her life so far. Diana Nyad is swimming again.

The weather window for this epic swim of hers has changed again, so instead of leaving Cuba's shoreline this morning, she began 15 hours earlier; Saturday afternoon.  Here our local paper has a picture of Diana blowing a trumpet from the beach in Cuba just before she began the swim.  I've clicked onto her blog already a few times since early this morning hoping for updates, and there are some already. Through the night she encountered swarms of jelly fish and already has endured several stings.  She shifted her stroke and the blog said it seemed to help.  She is swimming with a special suit designed to protect her from jelly stings.  On her last attempt to swim from Cuba to Key West, she was done in, if I recall, by jelly stings, and profound asthma.  I do recall she was having major shoulder problems as well, but I don't think that is why she stopped the last try.

There's so much I could say about Diana Nyad, but words seem to fall short.  You already know that I admire her immensely; I've written about her a few times on this blog.  Throughout my day of chores, cleaning and organization my thoughts will be with Diana. The thoughts of many people are with her from all around the world. Who knows what causes any elite athlete to have that drive, that focus, that power needed to set such extreme goals and then achieve them.  Diana Nyad has tried this epic journey before, and although each time so far she has not completed the swim, each attempt has better prepared her for another attempt.  Despite the fact that she is merely days away from her 63rd birthday, she is likely in the best shape of her life both mentally and physically.

Diana I'm thinking of you and hope you can feel the love and power coming forth your way from around the world.  Swim strong and conquer.

(you can follow Diana's journey with updates on her blog at www.diananyad.com/blog)