I wanted to teach myself some life lessons at the age of 60 and one of them was that you don't give up.

When I walk up on that shore in Florida, I want millions of those AARP sisters and brothers to look at me and say, 'I'm going to go write that novel I thought it was too late to do. I'm going to go work in Africa on that farm that those people need help at. I'm going to adopt a child. It's not too late, I can still live my dreams.'

You have a dream and you have obstacles in front of you as we all do. None of us ever get through this life without heartache, without turmoil, and if you believe and you have faith and you can get knocked down and get back up again and you believe in perseverance as a great human quality, you find your way.

My mom just died. We blink and another decade passes. I don't want to reach the end of my life and regret not having given my days everything in me to make them worthwhile.

Just getting in the pool for seven straight hours is unbearable to me.... It's grueling. There's nothing physically pleasurable about it. If you're doing a hard workout, you're throwing up in the gutter. At night you cling to your pillow and just hope that your body revives before you have to go back and do it again.

This is a lifelong dream of mine and I'm very very glad to be with you.

There is... nothing greater than touching the shore after crossing some great body of water knowing that I've done it with my own two arms and legs.