After 50 km, I get faster — and less stable

Attention and inhibition decline after an ultramarathon (EEG ERP: N2 & P3)

Paper (for your reference):
A 2025 study in Journal of Applied Physiology reported behavioral + EEG (ERP) changes immediately after a 50 km race. DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00941.2025

Attention and Inhibition Decline After Ultramarathon EEG ERP N2 and P3

BrainLatam2026 — First-person embodied commentary

I read this paper as one clean question:

“After running 50 km, does my brain hold executive function the same way — or does it switch operating mode?”

And I like the honesty of the design: measure people before and right after the race, then compare behavior and EEG during a classic visual oddball task. No mythology. Just state → measurement.

In this task, my brain is repeatedly seeing “common” stimuli, and occasionally a “rare” one pops in. That rare event asks me to do two things at once:

• Inhibit the autopilot response and stay accurate

• Allocate attention quickly enough to detect the deviant event

The authors track this with two well-known ERP markers:

• N2 (often linked to inhibitory control / conflict monitoring)

• P3 (often linked to attentional resource allocation / updating)

What “hits” me in the results

Here’s the pattern that feels very real in the body:

1. I respond a little faster after the race
   …but my performance becomes less consistent (more variability).
   In first-person terms: I can still “do it,” but my stability budget is smaller.

2. My cortical “control strength” drops
   Both N2 and P3 amplitudes decrease after the ultramarathon.
   In first-person terms: I’m not necessarily slower. I’m thinner.
   Less margin. Less buffering. Less ability to hold clean control.

3. P3 arrives earlier
   That earlier P3 latency feels like: my system tries to decide faster by skipping steps.
   Not “lazy.” More like an emergency efficiency mode: compress the pipeline.

So the post-ultra state doesn’t read to me as “slow brain.”
It reads as fast + imprecise, like I’m running a shorter algorithm.

I don’t freeze — I shortcut.
But shortcuts increase variability.

The part that matters for young researchers (and for life)

The authors also report links between these EEG changes and pre-race psychological measures (motivation types; negative mood scores). I like this because it quietly breaks a cultural dogma:

It’s not only the legs. It’s not only glycogen.
The state I bring into the race can influence the state my brain becomes after the race.

That is decolonial-friendly science, because it refuses the “one-body-fits-all” story. It doesn’t reduce the person to performance. It treats the person as an ecosystem: body + history + motivation + context + load.

What this helps us un-dogmatize (politics, science, religion)

A lot of dogmas are built on a hidden assumption:
“A person chooses with full, stable, sovereign cognition at all times.”

This paper pushes against that assumption without preaching.

It suggests something more humane and more testable:

• Executive control is state-dependent

• Speed can increase while stability decreases

• A brain under extreme physiological load may optimize for getting through, not for being perfectly consistent

That matters for how we judge ourselves, how we judge others, and how we design education:

When a body is in an extreme state, cognition can become compressed.
Not “bad.” Not “weak.”
Just different operating mode.

One embodied check (30 seconds, right now)

Before you keep reading anything about “focus” or “discipline,” check:

• Is your exhale shorter than your inhale?

• Are your shoulders slightly lifted?

• Is your jaw clenched?

If yes: you’re already reading from a biased state.

The science isn’t only “out there.”
It begins in here, in the state you bring to the page.

Brain Bee experiment prompts (simple, testable, ethical)

1. State compression test (within-subject):
   Measure reaction time + variability on a simple oddball-like task before vs after:

• a long run

• a hard school day

• sleep restriction
  Which condition makes you faster-but-more-variable?

2. Recovery lever test:
   After load, compare 10 minutes of:

• quiet sitting vs

• walking vs

• long-exhale breathing
  Which one restores stability (not just speed) the most?

3. Transition sensitivity test:
   Do the same task during a transition (right after you stop moving, right before you speak, right after you open the phone).
   Do transitions increase variability more than steady blocks?

4. Context portability test (biome idea):
   Does the same “performance strategy” work in every environment?
   Or does it create unnecessary tension when the context changes?

The BrainLatam takeaway

This paper doesn’t tell me “ultras are bad” or “discipline is everything.”
It tells me something more useful:

Extreme load can make me faster, but it can also thin my control.
So the real skill is not only pushing.
It’s learning how to return — and how to measure that return.

Anergy in Transitions - Why the Movement Junction Requires More Awareness

Attention, It's Not a Channel, It's a State - What an RSVP-BCI Reveals About Distraction EEG ERP P300 BCI RSVP

I Hear the Error, But Don't Process It - MMN Without P300 in 0G

When I feel the feedback, I become the master of the step - vibration and sense of agency EEG ERP N100 Sense of Agency

Real-time neuromodulation - a practical step towards closed-loop

When I Miss in Real Time - My Brain Turns Theta EEG 3–8 Hz

After 50 km, I get Faster — and Less Stable

Don’t be “soldiers of belief” — be builders of questions

EEG ERP BCI MMN P300

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