another outlier. for sure.

Yesterday when I went to youtube to listen to Dolly Parton sing Jolene* I saw a commercial for a Diana Nyad swim. She was going to swim for 48 hours in a custom built pool in Harold Square for 48 hours to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. I nearly leapt out of my chair and headed to mid-town, except I wasn't halfway through the workday. Instead, I remained seated (gah) and did breathing exercises to remain calm. (I'm very hot headed and impulsive.) At the end of the day I had a meeting and had to wait some more. Finally. Around 7 pm-ish I made my way to the pool. Lo and behold. There was Diana. Rockin' it. She was in her 34th hour of swimming.

When (if) you read What Makes Olga Run at times the author refers to a bell curve. In this way he's trying to illustrate that if Olga were 37 and running she'd be off the charts. I don't really understand drawing comparisons to a person back in time or to some hypothetical version of the person because we know that when Olga was 37 she was divorcee, and raising 2 kids, while earning her living as a school teacher and she had never entered any competive sporting events. So I really could care less what a mathematical formula tells me about an Olga who never existed.

Diana Nyad is a 64 year old, long-distance swimmer. Recently she swam from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. Impressive on so many levels.

And what's nice is I don't have to sit around wrinkling my brain trying to come up with a complex formula about what she'd been at 35. I know what she was like. She was a long distance swimmer and she's been trying for 30 years to achieve the swim from Cuba to Florida.

I will admit that I'm endlessly curious to know what she eats. I can tell from watching a couple of clips that she is a really determined, smart individual. I suspect she is a jock who never gave up on her dream.


Watching her swim was intense. She has perfect form. Each lap was nearly identical. The way her hands came up out of the water, the way she turned to take in a breath of air. The movements is they were measured would have to be measured on a Zen scale. (This woman is an outlier of the first order. She's definitely put in her 10,000 hours.)

She would take mini breaks to sip water and I think one of the trainers was applying Vaseline to her face. I wondered if she was eating carbohydrate gel packets to sustain her energy levels. (I sure hope they applied sun block to her arms and legs during the day. No need to get skin cancer while setting records.)

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* The White Stripes do an excellent cover of Jolene. Jack White makes it all his own. (Jack White is another outlier.)