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Ohio Woman Aims To Swim Length Of Allegheny River

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Aug 19, 2008 8:31 pm US/Eastern

Ohio Woman Aims To Swim Length Of Allegheny River

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Katie Spotz, 21, of Mentor, Ohio, is determined to become the first person ever to swim all 325 miles of the Allegheny River.

On July 23, she stepped into the headwaters in Potter County in Central Pennsylvania and plans to reach the Point in Pittsburgh this Thursday.

With the help of Bill Klee and his cabin cruiser we caught up with Katie, and her friend James Hendershott, 20, who is paddling the support kayak just above Lock-3 near Cheswick. Tredding water she told us, "I love endurance challenges. I just graduated from college and this has just been really good to think and reflect and challenge myself."

Katie and James have battled headwinds, choppy waters, and locks and dams on their journey. "In the beginning there was just really beautiful nature - there weren't many people at all," she says. With goggles, snorkel, flippers and webbed gloves the 5-foot-8-inch-tall,155-pound Katie is now gliding past mills, power plants and towboats.

They're gone through five or six jars of peanut butter, lots of trail mix, cheese crackers, oatmeal for breakfast and pasta for dinner.

Katie swims eight-to-10 hours a day, averaging 10 miles. James adds that, "About every 2 or 3 hours we'll take a 30-minute break."

There have been a few mishaps. "We lost the kayak last week, it drifted off in the middle of the night. We split up from each other one day in the lightning storm, so that was a bit of a mess," says Katie.

Yesterday, James dropped the cell phone in the drink, but there is no end to this adventure until Thursday at Noon. Katie says, "Once I start something it's extremely difficult for me to quit."

Katie is doing all this swimming for a good cause hoping to raise awareness and challenge funds for the "Blue Planet Foundation," which works throughout the world to help communities gain access to clean drinking water.

This is far from Katie's first adventure. She has already run marathons, a trail race in Australia, and biked across the United States. This fall she plans to take an ocean rowboat solo from Africa to South America.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.