When Diana Nyad was 60, she set her sights on an audacious goal: swimming 110 miles from Cuba to Florida. She succeeded four years later, the first person to do it without a shark cage. During the 53-hour swim, she never exited the water.
She tried and failed the swim when she was younger (the first time at 28) and said when she returned to training in her 60s, she found new strengths that surprised her.
“I was much less selfish or self-absorbed than in my 20s,” Nyad said.
She didn’t fully understand, as a young athlete, that the people around her were critical to her success, in particular the boat team that accompanied her during her open-water swim.
“I changed by the time I was in my 60s,” said Nyad, now 76. “We were in a true team.”
A recent study of older adults found that, contrary to stereotypes, nearly half of people improve after 65 cognitively or physically or both. Nyad is an extraordinary example, but researchers argue that many of us are capable of achieving better fitness and cognitive function later in life. A positive attitude is key.
Nyad talked with The Washington Post about her record-breaking swim and how she continues to grow her strength and energy more than a decade later. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You attempted the swim from Cuba to Florida several times and succeeded on your fifth try. Did you feel more capable at 64 than in your 20s?
I don’t know if capable is the right word, but I was more joyful, more eyes-wide-open. In my 60s, I trained in the Caribbean, and we’d go out for a 16-hour day in the ocean. That’s not a fun, easy day. [But] sometimes I would look up at the stars at night and think of the majesty of the universe. I’m not a religious person, I’m an atheist, but I would look across the expanse of this blue planet that we live on with such awe. You wouldn’t have heard me talk like that in my 20s.
How else do you feel you’ve changed as you’ve gotten older?
I’m a lot nicer. I’m not a sweet little easygoing wallflower, but I’m more forgiving of people. And my friends would say I’m nicer.
Did you always have positive ideas about aging?
I didn’t know old people. I never knew any grandparent. But one thing that is different about me, I always had a pressing worry about the passage of time. When I was in sixth grade I made a speech to the class, and said: “Okay, we’re 11 now. If you looked at all of our genetics, probably we all have about 70 years to live. That’s all we’ve got. We’ve got to become doctors. We’ve got to help people. We’ve got to learn languages. We’ve got to travel the world, help the poor. We have to be the best we can be.” I’ve had this sense, all the time, that the clock is ticking, and as you get older it seems to tick faster. It’s not that I’ve always thought aging is going to be graceful or peaceful or wise. I just know that every minute, no matter what age you are, is fleeting. I just want to grab on to all of it.
Are you still swimming?
I swim some because I do fundraisers for charities by swimming. I’ve gotten into tennis in a big way. I do badass gym workouts that I guarantee a lot of 25-year-olds couldn’t do.
What do you make of this new research that found so many people get stronger and sharper with age?
I meet 65-year-olds who are half dead already, and I just met a 92-year-old last week who is still playing tennis, still does the New York Times crossword puzzle on Sunday in under an hour. She’s really sharp and she will probably be sharp until her last day.
There are other studies that talk about how as you get older, your connection with people is what means everything. When I’m out and traveling I like to be engaged. If I’m on a city bus, I’m going to know the woman next to me, I’m going to know her life story. I want to embrace the chaos. I want to be engaged as I go. And I think that’s a lot of keeping your mind young.
I wonder if you have any messages for people who are your age or older and aren’t feeling that kind of energy?
I just met with a friend and her mother because her mother had just lost her husband, and has lost a lot of friends. We went down the list of, what does she like to do? She said, it sounds kind of crazy, but when I grew up in Brooklyn, shuffleboard was my game. And so we found out there’s a shuffleboard place near her assisted living. She’s going to start playing shuffleboard, and I think it’s literally going to change her life. I bet they start going out to coffee afterward and call each other on the phone. It’s not just the game, she’s got a group.
So basically just find something that you enjoy doing and go for it?
It’s not only that — because people love to read, for instance, and I value reading, but it’s solitary. I think it’s more as people get older, don’t lose your friends. Make yourself be sociable. Get a card game going, go to the movies together, go out for a meal together.
Anything else you want to add?
I said when I did that swim, which was 12 years ago, that that was the prime of my life. And honestly, at 76, I’m even better now than I was then. As long as I keep this energy and this positive gratitude toward this life, as long as I’m this atheist in awe, things have gotten better and better.
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