Diane Van Deren is an ultra runner who had part of her brain removed to treat her seizures. It also affected her ability to perceive time and to read maps.
She originally started running to self-treat her seizures, but eventually running no longer staved them off.
Oddly, not being able to perceive time may have benefitted her running:
> Dr. Gerber credits her endurance in part to her brain limitations. He says runners who can better track time and map where they are can be distracted by the details. But Van Deren has a special facility for what he calls “flow” that lets her transcend the anguish of running long. “It’s a mental state,” Gerber says. “You become enmeshed in what you’re doing. It’s almost Zen. She can run for hours and not know how long she’s been going.”
She originally started running to self-treat her seizures, but eventually running no longer staved them off.
Oddly, not being able to perceive time may have benefitted her running:
> Dr. Gerber credits her endurance in part to her brain limitations. He says runners who can better track time and map where they are can be distracted by the details. But Van Deren has a special facility for what he calls “flow” that lets her transcend the anguish of running long. “It’s a mental state,” Gerber says. “You become enmeshed in what you’re doing. It’s almost Zen. She can run for hours and not know how long she’s been going.”
https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a21763474/fixin...
I first heard about her on Radiolab:
https://radiolab.org/podcast/122291-in-running