Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Bathroom Humor

When I was getting ready to run my first 5k years ago, I had a co-worker who was a hardcore runner. She was training for a marathon, only ate organic and took running very seriously. Much more seriously than I did at the time.

I hardly trained for that 5k, ended up walking a large part of it and made a tragic mistake in her eyes: I stopped to pee in the middle of the run.

You see those few minutes I was in the porta-john shave valuable time off my final run time. My co-worker yelle at me when she heard me say I had to pee mid-run. Logically I looked at her and said what am I supposed to do when I have to pee?

Her answer: Wet your pants. She seriously advocated peeing your pants to save your final run time.

Me? I'm okay with an extra few minutes and dry pants.

Another fellow runner brought up another issue when it comes to running and heading to the bathroom.

That being the impact eating the wrong foods can have on you needing to sprint from the treadmill to the restroom or porta-john.

It's something that happens to most runners, sometimes just the act of running can lead to an intestinal horror experience. Haven't you ever noticed all the porta-johns at the end of a race track?

I read an article once that said runners experience this intestinal distress because your body is sending all the oxygen to your other muscles and neglecting your intestines.

For the friend and I discussing this occurrence it was different foods triggered the "Dumb and Dumber" moment halfway through a run. Greasy foods and dried fruit eaten hours before a run did us in.

Of course the plus side in this it'll make you run extra fast to get to the porta-johns at the end of the race... and you could shave some time off your final tally.

2 comments:

  1. ah, the "dumb and dumber" moment. very clever, accurate description:)

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  2. When I ran regularly my running partner and I made a habit of talking about how awesome our poop was. There's just something about running that, I don't know, shakes things loose. Ha!

    She said she ran a marathon with a guy once who pooped his pants mid-race. Can you imagine?

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