Outdoor Running (the question of all questions)
 

So, at mile 9.77 (.23 miles from finishing my run this morning) I had to stop, do a quick stretch and get to a bathroom as soon as I could. Yes, the inevitable happened again. I had to go twosies.

As I sat there, I reflected on the many distance runners here and decided to ask the question.

I'm not a morning crapper. I try and eat something on my way to the gym to get my bowels awake but sometimes it doesn't work and I have to start working out because I only have so much time.

The one time I ran outside and did a 10 miler, I was 2 miles from my house when the urge hit me (it was 5:30 am and I wasn't close to a gas station).

How do you guys do it? Do you just have sphincter control from the Gods or is there another secret. Please give me guidance as I am 4 weeks away from the Salt Lake half.

A friend of mine told me that she was doing radio commentary on a local marathon. So she was sitting in the back of the truck watching the guys in the lead in the marathon. They were going through a residential neighborhood, and one of the lead guys suddenly veered into a house's front yard, pulled down his shorts, and did the twosies, and pulled his shorts back up and kept running. All in the matter of seconds. She was speechless.

It's time to decide if you are serious or not.

You need to regulate yourself by changing eating habits.

And it requires you to regulate so that you go about 4:00 am. Unfortunately, certain races require a break despite one's best planning. However, with eating you can regulate that.

part of your problem is running early in the morning. I don't do that so I wouldn't know about how to remedy that.

For any race that I have done, the nevousness gets me going and I always have to go before the race. It could be a 10 k and I will have the runs before hand.

I do know the feeling you are speaking of and it is not a good one. Being far from home and having it hit you is not good.

Which 1/2 marathon are you doing?

Paula's got the onesies thing down in this video. And she won the race.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6I2-YP42rs

But seriously, I think you can teach your body to crap before running. Just sit and grunt for a while every time. Pretty soon your body will know that before run is the time to poop. No scientific evidence here, just my experience.

Salt Lake

I've never had that urge hit me strong during a run. The longer the run, the less I have any #2 urges.

Ya I just go to the bathroom no matter what before I run. Sometimes something happens sometimes not. The only time I ever had a problem is when I forgot to go before and it hit me later around the last half mile. Let me tell you I couldn't hold it and my undies were destroyed.

One early morning Saturday run, the day after I OD on some fresh cherries, I found myself in a desperate predicament. I was running up by the Provo temple through some neighborhoods when it hit. I was right by Timpview High School and I seriously thought I was going to have to leave my mark on someone's lawn when suddenly I noticed the bathrooms by the baseball field. It was like God had put them there just for me at that moment.

Hopefully they weren't locked.