I started drafting this post a few days ago and was saving it for a day when I felt confident and happy and would be able to cope with the inevitable embarassment I’d feel when posting this. Today is not really that day but needs must (as it were). I finished the draft post with:

‘I haven’t yet had a ‘serious incident’ and I have decided to just not worry about it. If it happens it happens. It’ll be embarassing, upsetting, horrible and then life will go on.’

Well it happened, it was all those things and life is going on. Let me explain – I did say I was going to be honest about this running thing so I can’t really spare myself the embarassment. I distinctly remember one run when we started training for the half marathon 3 years ago where I had to stop abruptly because I had, for want of a more delicate phrase, shit myself – or at least it felt like it. I hadn’t actually made a mess of myself but it was still horrible. We had run along the canal, turned off over the bridge to come up towards the Riddlesden Golf Course and were just turning down the hill to continue along the road that runs parallel to the canal.  I remember being quite upset about it at the time but had sort of forgotten about it by the time we started running again earlier this year. Or maybe I had just blocked it out.

As we’ve gone through our training this time there has been the odd run where my tummy has felt a bit dodgy and where I’ve felt like I might find myself in the same predicament again. It freaked me out a bit, well a lot, initially until I realised that this was ‘a thing’. It’s not just me, it’s a running thing. Apparently lots of long distance runners get the runner’s trots and apparently it affects novice runners more. So it may settle down. What I eat and when also obviously has an impact. In the draft version I had written:

‘and the good news is that I seem to do much better with morning runs where I’ve just had a banana about 20 minutes or so before the run.’

Yes, well that may not actually be true. That’s what I did this morning. I got up, had a banana, got sorted and we set off. I had been to the toilet but almost as soon as we set off running my tummy felt dodgy. Then at around 2.5 miles we had a little downhill bit and it all went horribly horribly wrong. There’s no point pretending, I did actually poo my pants. Not much but enough to be disgustingly uncomfortable as well as mortified for the rest of the run. I didn’t stop. I just cried, quietly and kept plodding. We finished the 7 miles in almost exactly and hour and a half with a pace of 12.55 minutes per mile

I am hoping that as I get fitter my body overall will get used to running and I will have fewer tummy incidents. I got home, had a bath and slowly regained my sense of humour but it’s been a tough day mentally. It’s hard to get excited about running when in the back of your mind you’re considering nappies. So –  happy thoughts. I have lost 1.5 pounds (perhaps not surprising) and we have finished page 1 of the training programme: