103 Km with the sharks to swim ready

Nicole Bengiveno, the New York Times

Long-term goal Diana Solstice, a marathon swimmer, hopes that the first person from Cuba to key will to cross West without a shark cage. «More photos»

KEY WEST, FLA. -Every day, Diana Solstice is set out to do something, no athlete has ever done: swimming, all day and all night then all day and all night, then all day again.

Are swim about 60 hours in the roiling sea, 103 km of the Florida straits from Cuba to key West. Every hour and a half, stops water for a few minutes to enter it, as she gulps down a liquid mixture of predigested protein and an occasional bit of banana or BLOB eating peanut butter. You most probably hallucinating and endure the spines of many jellyfish. On the way, is sea salt swell their tongue of cartoonish proportions and rub their skin raw.

"it is absurd, outrageous against most, incredible physical endurance activity, certainly, in my life", Steven Muñatonessaid an open-water swimmer, who runs the Organization of open water source and serves as independent observers swim during Mrs Solstice. "I can't imagine being in the ocean for 60 hours." I can not imagine, to do something for 60 hours. It is inconceivable. "It's easy."

"Especially," he added, "at her age."

Her age is 61. Mrs Solstice trying this swimming once before, without success, 1978 at the age of 28. She, to the harsh weather and high-performance current far away course pushed sponge in a shark cage for 41 minutes her and had to give up. It had only 50 miles traveled. (A year later sponge 102 miles of the Bimini in the Bahamas, Jupiter, Florida, without a shark cage.) (She keeps always still the record for the world's longest Ocean swim.)

This time armed with better technology and battered but hard body, she will certainly make it. "Physically, I'm much stronger than I was before, although I was faster in my twenties,", said Ms. Solstice, that is robust enough to a linebacker defy looks. "I feel strong, high-performance and endurance-wise, I am fit".

Dr. Michael j. Joyner, Professor of anesthesia and exercise research at the Mayo Clinic, agrees that older athletes, especially excellent ones, do well in endurance sports, as experience and training of the need for speed can make up for.

52 Jeannie Longo still counts as top competitive cyclists. Gordie Howe played in his 50's, and Jack Lalanne was 60, if swam it from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf, in San Francisco, a second time, handcuffed, shackled and haul a 1,000-pound boat. Swimming is powered especially technology that greatly help Mrs Solstice.

"There are a ton of examples of people in their late 50's and early 60's in all kinds of wild things,", said Dr. Joyner. "If the logistics work for blocking bad it's feasible storms and currents." There is no sure thing. "But it would be a sure thing it would be Michael Phelps."

If Mrs Solstice from Cuba makes difficult to key West, have done the first person without a shark cage. Completed in 1997 by an Australian woman swimming in a shark cage. But with a boot of the vehicle pull, the swimming is easier and faster; the woman, which it completed in less than 24 hours.

"I'm in uncharted territory," said Mrs Solstice.

This time, takes wife Solstice, an accomplished Marathon swimmer and Sportscaster, no chance. You taught and half - harder - for one year and changed their therapy. Instead of every day, they swim swimming every other day. Last year, she completed a 24-hour swim in Mexico.

Thus their success, they an armada of people organised - 22 in all - as your support team to serve. All of them travels to Cuba, visa in your hand, and will try to arrive three days after their swimming. (Shoots was last year because of the difficulties, Visa cancelled.)

"This is the part that really interests me about Diana," said Mr Muñatones. "It is not only the swimming part." There are people who can swim the. But they have not the passionate, organisational and political oratorical skills, which she has. "

It has also technology on their side: satellites, global positioning systems, navigation software, advanced even shark of shields, of which none in 1978 were available. For all of this costs $500,000. She raised funds and their own bank account with depleted, but it is still $150,000 short. Mrs Solstice, a commentator for the Los Angeles-based public radio station KCRW, shrugs it off.

"If I wind up to $150,000 in debt, I sleep about it not lose", she said.

At the moment, find four experts seven days in advance to locate the ideal weather for her, to Cuba and Wade in the Ocean: a satellite oceanographer and meteorologist trained at the whim of the Gulf stream; working an another meteorologist for CNN; and two officials at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The slowdown, hope you are all for the beginning of a low pressure system, sea, for a few days could create a tension water level.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: 20 July 2011

An article on Tuesday about Diana Solstice, prepared to swim from Cuba to Florida at the age of 61 falsified their professional role. She is a commentator for the Los Angeles-based public radio station KCRW; It works not for national public radio.

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