Marathon swimmer Diana Nyad on Tuesday ended her attempt to become the first person to swim 103 miles from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage. Nyad, 61, stopped after 29 hours in the water as rough seas, a bad shoulder, and problems with asthma made continuing impossible. The current had pushed her some 15 miles off course to the east, the same problem that Nyad faced in her first attempt at the crossing in 1978. “It was my decision to stop and nobody else’s,” Nyad told the New York Times. Nyad stopped long-distance swimming in the late 1970s and now works as a radio newsperson in Los Angeles. Her first attempt lasted 41 hours and 49 minutes. She came out of retirement to challenge her own open-water swimming record of 102.5 miles, set between the Bahamas to Florida. She does not plan to take another shot at the record. “I would be lying to say I’m not deeply, deeply disappointed,” . “This was a big dream, not just of the last two years, but some 30 years when I tried it.”
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