Reflection Task 1b

                                  DIANA NYAD

       Diana Nyad was born in New York City,1949.She is an American author, journalist, motivational speaker, and World record long-distance swimmer. Her parents divorced in 1952 and his mother married with Aristotle Nyad who adopted Diana.The family moved to Fort Lauderdale,Florida where she began swimming seriously in seventh grade. She was enrolled at the private Pine Crest School. Later, she won Florida state high school. She dreamed of swimming in the 1968 Summer Olympics. However, she spent three months in bed due to an infection of the heart. After she recovered, she entered Emory University but she expelled because of jumping out a fourth-floor dormitory by wearing a parachute. She then enrolled at Lake Forest College in Illinois where she played tennis and resumed swimming.She soon came to the attention of Buck Dawson who is director of the International Swimming Hall of Frame in Florida and introduced her to marathon swimming. She set a women' World record of 4 hours and 22 minutes in her first race and swam 16 kilometers in Lake Ontario. After graduating from Lake Forest College in 1973 with degree in English and French, Nyad returned to South Florida to continue training with Dawson. Nyad gained national attention in 1975 when she swam around Manhattan about 45 kilometers and in 1979 when she swam from North Bimini,The Bahamas to Juno Beach,Florida about 164 kilometers.In 2013, on her fifth attempt and at age 64, she became the first person confirmed to swim from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage.Now that, she is writing a memoir scheduled to be released in 2015.