I think we lose a little perspective if there's disappointment with her going 15:07. She beat the runner-up, also an Olympic gold-medalist (on a relay) and an individual medalist, by 21 seconds, or about 40 yards.

Ya, if you consider her PR is 15:03.92 vs this 15:07.70, over 1650 that is about 0.23 sec/100 yd, so hardly a huge diff. Sounds like she took the first 500 out just a little too fast, but guess she just wanted to see if she could hold that pace. In any case, she's clearly still by far the dominant female distance swimmer of this era.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I'd also say that this swim also helped her out for later. Anytime anyone goes that hard, they add to their conditioning and race strategy. It's like a super-effective workout. We can't always expect her to get best times. Also, not saying this was a reason for her not getting a PR, but they did have the relay at the end of the meet. She had to come off a 15 minute sprint, get rehydrated and cooled down, grab something to eat, and then focus on swimming a 100. There's a story on http://www.swimswam.com that her coach, Greg Mehan, got this relay foursome fired up to win it for Lia Neal.

Yeah, she actually swam some 200 IM during regular NCAA season... she sort of sucked (relative to specialists), but I think that is part of the secret.
Not to get into a rut, keep the feel for speed and always be motivated to push and test your limits.

As a swim parent, the message I get out of this story is this: even the best like Katie Ledecky add time sometimes. :)