When I was in my teens I was fairly active, no real sports but regional champion at 100m, I could win the school cross country, so it wasn't just short distances, but rarely bothered. Moving on and most of my problems were caused by ASD, but the results of these did impact my physical activity.
After the virus which I now strongly suspect "caused" my M.E. I could do more or less anything I could do before, just slower, and for a limited period of time. I lost many jobs, one after the other, because after a few weeks of degrading performance I would get ill, and be unable to even ring them, let alone turn up. Most employers won't put up with that more than once or twice, no matter how good at the actual job you are.
It wasn't until I found a job where I could do things, mostly, as I was able, schedule and enforce my own rest etc. that I was able to hold down a job for any length of time. Even there I needed to take all the sick days I was allocated, and use holiday days, to recover. It was at times, a very physical job, but as I said above, almost all the time I could schedule in rest, even rest days.
At that point I didn't know what was wrong, I had no idea that I was "ill", TBH I didn't give it much thought beyond getting irritated by it, thinking it was an inherent defect in me. You see/hear about it all the time, people who are lazy, who have no drive etc. - maybe that's what it was, how would I know?
After I got made redundant from that job I was still reasonably physically active, at least compared with now. Cognitively things were not good, partially due to deterioration and partially due to the medication I had been put on, they suspected I was epileptic.
Move on a few years and we're at the banking energy stage, I can still do some basic things provided I "rest" before, often for several days, and "borrow" energy from the next several days. I even managed to have one consultancy job in that period, heavily medicated with rapidly decreasing productive time and increasing side effects. But I was "productive", I got the job done. Since the I haven't worked.
I did try a volunteer position, 3 hours a day for 2-3 days a week researching at a charity helpline, doing little else but sleeping the rest of the time. it nearly killed me and probably immediately presaged my period of several months being bed bound.
It was at this point, well, after I had some function back, so at least a few months later, that I realised something abnormal was going on, that it wasn't just me. I had no idea it could be M.E. as I had no idea what that was.
