Gastro-intestinal distress. It’s a secret ailment that most runners share and, like childbirth, unless you have experienced it, you really don’t know what it is all about. Well, for those of you who have been fortunate enough to escape the horrors of GI distress, running means that you are pounding your body’s weight into the ground, which also means that you’re shaking up the contents of your stomach. The longer the distance you run, the more everything breaks apart. As everything loosens, it easily passes through your intestinal tract and, sometimes, faster than expected, leaving runners desperately seeking a bathroom, porta-potty or tall grass. If you aren’t careful, GI distress can be an absolute disaster.
When I run with friends, no one ever argues if someone needs a bathroom; we’ve all been in that situation. And no one ever complains about the wait. In fact, none of my friends really talk about GI distress at all – except Kelly-Lynne. A few months ago, she complained about eating the wrong foods at work so, twenty-five minutes into our evening run, we had to stop for a bathroom. This time, it was me who was waiting for her, which was so unusual that I teased her about it, and we somehow ended up talking about poop for the rest of the run. By the time we finished, I asked, “Do you realize that we just spent the last 30 minutes talking about poop? How many girls talk about poop? That is unheard of!” Finally, I had found a poop peep.
Years ago, my conversations about poop were limited to other moms who had to deal with the horrors of poopy diapers and poop that finds its way up a baby’s back and into every crevice of the body, places that I never would have imagined poop could crawl into until I had my own boys, poop that was so gross that Dave would jump to walk the dog on the coldest days of winter to avoid the dreaded diaper change. But Kelly-Lynne is my first real poop peep, someone to share my greatest pre-race fears: not emptying my gut before the start, getting caught mid-race needing a porta-potty and wondering whether I can ‘hang on’ until the end.
Last night, Tammy the Hamstring derailed my plans to take my youngest and his three friends to the Blue Jays game. I knew that Tammy wouldn’t want to sit at the game for 2 hours or more, and she would end up complaining about the train trip in and out of the city as well. When Dave came to the rescue and agreed to take the boys, the other moms (Susan and Anna) were equally grateful and asked me to thank him. “He still owes me,” I messaged. “I’d rather take 4 boys to a baseball game than spend all those years changing poopy diapers. He got off easy.” Somehow the discussion changed to the joys of teen boys and plunging toilets of their superhuman feats bobbing inside. Within minutes, I realized that I had found more poop peeps.
Susan and Anna are not just poop peeps, though. They are peeps with strategies, mom hacks that are so brilliant that they make bathing a skunky dog with Vagisil seem banal, strategies that include using laxatives to break down the most frightening of exhibits or pouring Restoralax (and, yes, you can buy it in bulk at Costco) into the toilet bowl to loosen things. 
A Restoralax/Gatorade concoction, they tell me, moves things along quite nicely. Gatorade in the toilet? Who knew?!
Everyone needs a poop peep, especially if you are a runner, a mom or a running mom. My network feels complete but there is always room for more.
