Hey, I'm Floral Lictman, and you're listening to Science Friday.

It is the season for exercise resolutions.

While many of us, myself included, are trying to figure out how to slowly jog a few miles each week or maybe squeeze in, you know, a couple sessions on a bike.

Other people are doing the absolute most.

Ultra marathoners.

People running 50 or 100 miles in a day, for example.

I'm not sure why my feeds are overrun with these athletes, but I cannot look away. They seem superhuman

and a little mysterious to me. And at the same time, it makes me wonder, is there a limit to what

our bodies can endure? Is there a cap on the number of calories you can burn without your body

saying, I'm done? And what makes these athletes capable of pulling off

these tremendous running feats? Joining me to jog through the science of endurance are my guests.

Dr. Brandy Waite, director of UC Davis Health Sports Medicine in Sacramento, California, and Dr. Andrew

Best, assistant professor of biology at the Massachusetts

College of Liberal Arts. Welcome to you both to Science Friday. Thanks, Laura. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thank you. Nice to be here. Let's get this out of the way right at the top. I know you both

study extreme endurance athletes. Are either of you practitioners yourselves?

Well, I'm married to one, but my furthest distance run ever is a half marathon.

That's about as much as I ever have time to train for, but I have the crazy in my house with me every day.

Okay.

Drew?

I would say I am probably the crazy in my house, but I'm not an ultramarathoner. I'm a reformed runner and trail runner who now mostly focuses on mountain biking. But I do have the obsession.

See, I'm so glad that you all talked about it this way because I do think for people who are, you know, like me,

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