Poop before you run...

Friday, December 03, 2010
I like movies. I tend to watch them more than I should and then quote things from them in almost every conversation. I also like to get others to watch things that I’ve found to be good and at Christmas, always find myself in the ‘Half Price’ type places that have old, used movies for sale.

I go straight to the VHS’s. I find them to be more dependable over time. At my house, DVD’s start out in their cases, but once placed in a DVD player, never seem to return…except my mine or Holly’s hand. As a result they end up getting scratched and smudged, which of course makes their ability to play suspect. And it pisses me off…hence the VHS.

Anyway, I was in such a store doing some Christmas shopping for family members, but managed to pick up 7 movies for $7…probably for me. Some are movies we used to have in the house, but have left with my kids. They tell me they belonged to them…but I have my doubts. Still…if I can get them for a buck…I’m grabbing them. I picked up quality stuff like “My Cousin Vinny”, “A Few Good Men”, “Frequency”, and “Dead Again”. I look at it as an investment in my training, too. I can’t stand to sit on the trainer without something to distract me on the TV and since we aren’t willing to pay for the cable, network TV can be pretty thin when I want to ride. I actually did get a couple of things that weren’t for me, too.

I drove to the park for my run through a gentle snowfall. I enjoy running in the snow and cold and I figured this would be a particularly pretty run with only an inch or less on the trails and likely no one to interrupt my serenity. I was wearing shorts and a short-sleeved t-shirt, socks on my hands and my ear protector on my head. I’ve decided to grow back some of my hair (I say ‘some’ because others of it don’t want to grow back) in an attempt to keep my head a little warmer on my winter runs. The top is still exposed though, and I’ll probably have to wear a hat at some point.

The snow was gathering on the bare part of my arms and was pretty cold, but manageable. I had been running about 5 minutes when I began to question the wisdom of not using the bathroom before leaving. By 8 minutes, there was no more questioning…I HAD to go.

I’ve been up against this many times in my running career and to answer the question “do runners shit in the woods”…I would reply “um…all the time”. I was running in an area that didn’t feature port-a-john’s, so what was I going to do? I knew the closest park facility was about half a mile away…and with the way I was squeezing, may as well have been a hundred miles away…I wasn’t getting there. I moved a distance off the trail and did what I had to do, utilizing what God had placed within easy reach…leaves, smooth sticks, a rock – all covered in snow…for the clean-up. It was painful and cold, but you make do. I returned to the trail and headed down a slope into a parking lot…about a hundred yards from my bathroom break. There…sitting next to, and partially obscured by a dumpster…was a port-a-john. I used a couple of my bad words and went inside to find the toilet paper I’d been missing. Sometimes…you just have to squeeze a little longer.

Run duration: 30 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 140 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 500.