Friday, July 25, 2008

The Call of Nature

Until some of the other team members start emailing me their anecdotes for publishing you shall have to put up with me. You don’t have to read my waffle if you don’t want to – I will never know. But if you crack a smile, smirk or snigger at my shortcomings then my job is done. Content warning: Those of you who don’t know me will soon find out about my crass sense of humour. Those of you who do know me, (stop rolling eyes...NOW).

Before the IM I heard from some of the guys (well OK one, namely SAM PRITCHARD) that when spending 6hours, maybe less, maybe more in the saddle, when the call of nature comes, if it comes, you just to quote, “pee on the bike”. Well I never! How unladylike I thought. Fast forward to the looming race and I polled a couple of the girls with the same question. And it was the response of sexy Chris, always so enviously ready for a Kodak moment who said, “Pee on the bike of course!” And so that was it. Should the call of nature come; I would pee on my beloved Scott.
Fast forward again to race day and this is how my bladder faired, (I did warn you I could be crass).
Swim: Took me rather a long time and all the water induced the need to pee. (Just as well there weren’t many people behind me!)
Pee total in swim, 3.
Bike: This is where it gets silly. Being a good girl I ate and drank and ate and drank. After 45minutes on the bike I was busting. Oh well here goes nothing. You know when you see a baby smiling because they just filled their diaper – that was me (sans diaper – oh and the poop!).
At first I tried to avoid the shoes, and slosh down with water from the stations. After pee number 2 and 3 (I was now going like clockwork every 45minutes) I realised I was actually piddling on the nutrition taped to the top tube and my bottles which were left open for ease of drinking – YUM.
Pee total on bike 5.
Run: Having listened to my mentors I decided to stop and drink at every station located at 1k intervals. This lasted for all of 2 or 3k because yes you guessed it; I was dying to answer the call of nature. Now this time round I used the port-a-loo. In rather a disgusting mess (I do have some standards) I decided on the spot not to use that again. So in order to stop pissing about (pun intended) I stopped drinking, electing instead to take a cup every few K, and squeeze sponges over my head and in my suit. And THAT finally did the trick.
Pee total on run 1.
So in all, for my first IM outing I peed a total of 9 times in just sub 13hours. I am sure this must be a record somewhere, anyone who can beat it please let me know : )
BTW: cleaning the bike, socks and shoes afterwards was so NOT pleasant, but oh so worth it!

2 comments:

Ishsal said...

hmmm, being mr. pee himself, but still stopping to offload till today, i might as well give this a shot. i still think its probably easier for women in this department though. perhaps on a training ride somewhere away from the crowd ... with lots of water to spare at the car, i shall endeavour! uuhhh, the thought of it :)

Stupid_O said...

THREE times in the swim? did you drink half the ocean or what? heheh :-P