Sharon Stone, Pierce Brosnan and more celebrities are rallying behind an Omaha native as she rows solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
For over a month, Taryn Smith — who is competing in the World’s Toughest Row, a 3,000-mile race from the Canary Islands to Antigua — has taken to social media to document her daily challenges and reflections, all while being met with waves of support from celebrities and fans from all over the globe.
“Stay strong of heart Taryn, Day at a time. Mighty woman you are. Best to you,” Brosnan commented on one of Smith’s videos.
“Today sounds like a day that breathing deep and powerful breathing,” Stone commented on another. “Singing as loud as you can might be good.”
“Look at you; at one w nature As if you, a woman were in fact female & came from nature herself,” Stone wrote on another video. “Well, great good going.”
“Wow you are amazing!!!” Katie Couric commented.
Smith is also followed by celebrities such as Mariska Hargitay, Ellen Pompeo, Will Smith, Alyssa Milano and more on Instagram.
Smith, who departed on Dec. 14 and spent nearly three years training for the endeavor, is the first American woman to compete in the World’s Toughest Row as a solo athlete.
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“Taryn and her adventurous spirit seem to know no fear,” Shelly Smith, Taryn’s mother, told the outlet. “She has always been a kid that thrives on adventure. She just really likes that challenge.”
According to her website, Smith is rowing two hours on, two hours off, surfing 40-foot waves, burning 5,000 calories a day, and eating backpacking meals and snacks to stay fueled.
Smith, who is representing Girls on the Run, a nonprofit that empowers girls in grades three through eight through physical activity and confidence-building programs, has been sharing every part of her journey, the good and the bad, through daily video blogs.
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“Closing out day 42 of Rowing Across The Atlantic Ocean by myself,” Smith started a video last week. “Here are my unsolicited thoughts on resilience. The first is that a huge part of resilience for me is remembering that everything ends. This too shall pass. All storms pass. I spend every moment I’m awake out on deck. And the past 42 days have really been a meditation and watching weather pass both up in the sky. And [my mind].”
“Another part of resilience has been having context and perspective for what I’m doing,” she continued. “Yes, it’s very difficult. It’s tough and a lot of things hurt while I’m out here, but it is luxurious compared to what Atlantic Crossings would’ve been 200, 300 years ago. I have painkillers, I have vitamins. I have a desalinated to make fresh water. I can call my mom whenever I want. I can listen to any music I want to or any book. So it really is pretty comfortable compared to what human beings were doing 200 and 300 years ago, even a hundred years ago.”
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Smith said it’s good for us to be “uncomfortable” sometimes.
“I think that’s a part of the human experience,” she added. “And the last is that every moment I have the conditions to be happy and being uncomfortable and being happy, not mutually exclusive. Now I’m saying this at the end of a very chill day. This is not the kind of thing I would’ve been saying earlier this week when we had really punchy weather and I was scared the boat was going to capsize.”
“Those days I was calling my mom and crying,” she admitted. “And so throughout this process, throughout training and rowing across the ocean, I thought that I would get to some arrival point where every moment I would just be totally zen and serene and be locked in and dialed in all the time. But that hasn’t happened, and I don’t think it ever will in my lifetime. And I think part of the process is forgetting and then remembering time and time again that this too shall pass.”
Smith is expected to complete her race within the week.
