Find a Way - 9780385353618

Diana Nyad's amazing, inspiring firsthand account of her record-breaking swim, after four failed attempts, from Cuba to Florida, at the age of sixty-four--and of her extraordinary quest to live life at the highest level, in and out of the water.

On September 2, 2013, at the age of sixty-four, Diana Nyad emerged onto the shores of Key West after completing a 110-mile, fifty-three-hour, record-breaking swim through shark-infested waters from Cuba to Florida and delivered three messages to the world: never, ever give up; you're never too old to chase your dreams; and it looks like a solitary sport, but it takes a team. Millions of people around the world cheered for her and were moved by her incredible tenacity and determination, her triumph after so many bitter failures, and by the mantra--find a way--that enabled her to realize a dream in her sixties that had eluded her as a young Olympian in peak form.

In Find a Way, she tells the passionate, singularly inspiring story of this feat of epic endurance and the extraordinary life experiences and lessons that helped her to realize her dream. She was a world-class swimmer by the time she left high school; in 1975, at the age of twenty-six, she circumnavigated the island of Manhattan and became a star. She made her first attempt at the Cuba-to-Florida swim soon after, but was blown off course and pulled from the water after 79 miles. A year later, on her thirtieth birthday, she broke the open-ocean world record for both men and women, swimming 102 miles unassisted and without a shark cage. She did not swim another stroke for three decades.

Why, at sixty-four, was she able to achieve what she could not at thirty? How did her repeated failures contribute to her success? What inner resources did Nyad draw on during her days and nights in the water, and how did the power of her mind and spirit trump the limitations of her body? This is the story of an unforgettable journey--physical, spiritual, emotional, psychological--and a galvanizing meditation on facing fears, engaging our passions, and living life with no regrets.