The mile, as the 1,500 freestyle is colloquially known, is generally considered the sport's most grueling event. Competing in it requires physical and mental stamina, training blocks that at their most intense can push 12 miles per day and to ignore the body's normal cues that it is experiencing excruciating pain.
Even Ledecky, 27, who loves distance racing and has built a career around it, called it fully masochistic in her recently published memoir. For nearly every other competitor, it might be the single worst event in the Olympic program: a lung-busting, muscle-burning, 15-plus-minute torture test.
You can't even be upset, said Jillian Cox, 19, an American distance swimmer who has competed against Ledecky. On the first 50, you are body lengths behind. It's just amazing.
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