Chronic pain sufferer Katie Pumphrey completes 15-mile open water swim

See The Washington Post

For the ensuing eight hours and 45 minutes, Pumphrey, 26, would fight fatigue and nausea in the water, pain in her back and, perhaps most difficult, the mental strain of trying to propel herself across the river and back. When she finished, she said, she stood on the beach and cried.

“It was the most epic experience of my life,” she said. “There was just so much stress and coordination and patience and [it was an] emotional roller coaster.”