Diana Nyad

I took 31 years, didn’t swim a stroke anywhere except for boogie boarding in the ocean. I thought I was done with all the beautiful meditation of swimming. I couldn’t find that anymore. So last summer, I quietly just went to a little country club pool and I would swim like 22 minutes. You can’t believe how slowly. Ladies doing sidestroke were going past me.

Then I started to escalate. I started feeling stronger, I started lifting weights, and along about October, I started doing 20,000-meter swims in the pool, six-hour swims, crazy swims. Then in January I went to Mexico and did my first ocean swim. It was a raging day. It was cold, I did a six-and-a-half-hour swim, and when I got done, I knew I had it in my spirit and had it in my body to dedicate myself to the Cuba-to-Florida swim.

Q. Are you coming at this swim from a different place emotionally than in 1978?

A. So different. To be molested as a child by the person I put all my faith in, all my trust in — my swim coach — I think it really rocked the cells of my little being. In my 20s, I was so driven to be special. I just had to prove to myself first and my world that I can do this and I’m capable of that and you’ve got to look at me. I’m not just a sexual molestee. That’s not my definition. I don’t want to be that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/sports/15seconds.html