Peter Frick-Wright (host): Hey everybody, this is Peter and I am out sick this week, so we are replaying one of our favorite episodes from the past few years, about a mysterious sort of semi-illness, that was going around the endurance athlete community. We originally produced this story for our Sweat Science series, and it’s fascinating. Enjoy.
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Peter Frick-Wright: A few years ago, journalist Meaghen Brown started noticing something strange in her local ultra running community.
Meaghen Brown: I had a couple of friends who were struggling with something that seemed kind of unplaceable. Basically they would do really, really well for like two or three years and then totally fall off the map.
Frick-Wright: Meaghen was working at Outside, living in Santa Fe, and hanging around with elite runners, and these guys were mysteriously slipping down the ranks, right when they should have been at the top of their game.
Brown: You have a really successful athlete who’s like top of the podium breaking records for about two years, maybe three, and, all of a sudden, they’re not. It’s not stomach, it’s not an injury. It’s just they don’t seem capable of performing at the same level anymore.
Frick-Wright: And then they just…
