Brain on Extreme Endurance - Ryan Hinton

     I read this article studying our brain on extreme endurance - specifically the world record Camino de Santiago time - because Dr. Redick sent us the link, and I was hoping to find something in it I could use for my final paper. While I didn't end up finding anything that I believed would relate to my thesis, in hindsight, I actually think I may have been able to use it. Alas, I have already turned in my final paper and I did not use it. This article was genuinely insane because it was all about what happens to the brain on extreme endurance. It turns out the brain actually shrinks during periods of extreme endurance and so I began to wonder what really extreme endurance meant. Obviously, the brain will consume itself for fuel when you are running every day, but what about walking every day? Does it still count as extreme endurance when you walk 15-20 miles every single day? This question prompted me to do some research on Google, and I found out about this thing called Hiker's Brain, where if you hike for long periods of time, it may not necessarily shrink your brain, but it does give you a sort of mental fog. I thought this was extremely interesting, and I wonder how it would affect other things, like is this sort of extreme endurance only physical or can it be mental as well? What about spiritual? Can you get soul fog when your spirit has been in a marathon or has been pressed to its limit for a long time? 

    I really thought these were interesting questions, and I hope to continue thinking about them in the future. I don't think anyone truly has an answer to these kinda questions. I believe that it depends on the person and that you need to feel the situation out in order to really determine it.