What Makes Katie Ledecky Swim?

Long before Katie Ledecky was collecting gold medals and setting world records, she seemed nonchalant about making it across the pool.

In her first race, a 25-meter freestyle, she stopped along the lane line about 10 times, sometimes to clear her goggles, sometimes to clear her nose and sometimes just to look around. But when she saw her competitors cruising past, something sparked within her. She let go. With windmill-like arms, she plowed ahead, ultimately finishing second.

When her father, camcorder in hand, asked his daughter, just 6 at the time, how the race had gone, she said, “Great!” He asked her if she was “just trying to finish,” and she responded, “Just trying hard.” The conversation left Ms. Ledecky with a kind of motto she has kept in mind as she makes final preparations for this summer’s Paris Olympics: Great. Hard. Just trying to finish.

Many of her early swims took place at Palisades Swim & Tennis Club, a wooded, family friendly setting in Cabin John, Md., near Washington. Her final meet at the club was in 2014, two years after she had won her first Olympic gold medal. “Palisades” is the first chapter of her new memoir, “Just Add Water,” which comes out on Tuesday, and the club’s pool remains her most meaningful place to swim.

Ms. Ledecky, now 27, and I recently met for lunch in Bethesda, Md., where she grew up. The day before, at the White House, she had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, making her the first swimmer to receive one. During the ceremony, after noting that some consider 27 old for an Olympic swimmer, President Biden said: “Katie, age is just a number, kid.”

“It took me a minute to process that joke,” Ms. Ledecky said of the 81-year-old president’s remark.

She ordered a grilled chicken salad. She had already swum 5,600 meters (or 224 lengths) that morning and had another practice in a few hours. She estimated that she swims more than 65,000 yards — or about 37 miles — a week. That adds up to 1,900 miles a year, and it means eons of staring at the black line that runs along the bottom of a pool.