UKC

Ok so I will try to explain this as simply as possible. My key question here is to try to understand what is actually going on in my body - physiologically:

1. It's the weekend and I'm going to do a run, normally at 9am (parkrun for example).
2. I get up in good time and get ready and go to the loo. I don't poo very much and any I do is quite firm. However I know that I will need to go later.
3. I drive off to my run - normally takes about 30-40 minutes.
4. By the time I have arrived I am in urgent need of a poop and when I go it comes out in a large volume and particularly loose.

So what is causing the change in that hour or so between going to the loo the first time and going shortly before the run. Is this adrenalin? Is it something else? It is certainly a frequent thing I encounter. Fortunately it doesn't tend to cause me a problem as my usual weekend run does have facilities to be able to use the loo.

In reply to Rampikino:

I don't know but a couple of tabs and a coffee has a very similar effect...

In reply to Rampikino:

And people say the standard of conversation on UKC has dropped...

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Jeeez - I'm asking a physiological question - not just trying to talk sh*t!

In reply to Rampikino:

I think, compared to you, I am lucky. The second movement occurs whilst I am still at home, fortunately for me, but otherwise I follow a similar pattern.

I attribute this to the adrenaline/nerves and not something I can (or necessarily want to) do anything about. It does not happen if I am just lazing about the house that morning, so it is caused by the fact I am going running.

I never need to go again after this second movement at home, so I am usually fine for the event (even if it starts a couple of hours later, following a train journey, warming up and queuing for a pee).

I don't know what you can do about it - get more excited/pumped up whilst you are still at home? Get up even earlier and go for a quick warm-up run? Have "a couple of tabs and a coffee" as Hardonicus suggested?!

In reply to Rampikino:

Perhaps its the body getting rid of unwanted baggage before undertaking exercise, adrenalin build up and all that. Certainly when I used to play rugby I would go from being a one poo person during the week to at least three on a Saturday morning prior to playing.

In reply to Rampikino:

Does the same happen if you just go for a run out the front door?

If not then it's probably race nerves.

In a similar (but much easier to deal with) way, how comes I can just do my laces up and go for a run at home but at the start of a race I would need to adjust them 3 quadrillion times.

In reply to Rampikino:

Ok! The " " was meant to mean I only said that for comic effect.

In reply to Michael Hood:

The answer is no, it doesn't happen if I am about to go for a run from my own front door.

I would say "nerves" too, but any idea what is happening - is it adrenalin? Some other bodily chemicals that do this...?

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

I know I know

In reply to Rampikino:

It's likely to do with an increase in tone of the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response) relative to the parasympathetic nervous system. This will change hormone levels and reduce blood flow to the gut leading to the famed 'runners trots'.

Simple version!

In reply to Rampikino:

Do you get the same with climbing??

I used to be terrible when I started out at the climbing wall, as soon as I entered the building I'd be heading straight for the gents!!

In reply to dj_brigham05:

That's a cracking explanation, thanks. I was wondering about "fight or flight" and whether that was linked.

In reply to Tricky Dicky:

Never to my knowledge!

In reply to dj_brigham05:

Can I use this to justify shitting on belay ledges before tough pitches?

In reply to Rampikino:

Similar thing here, 6am = get up and have a little poo, head out to site where there are normally no facilities and around 10 ish have a big poo but mainly only if I am working on my own, if I have someone with me I'm normally fine until I get home at 1700/1800 ish.
On weekends it's just get up and do one then fine for the day until evening time and on holiday it's up and little poo, breakfast, 30 mins later second poo then out for the day and normally fine until we get back to the hotel at night.
I would love to know why.

In reply to Removed User:


Do you shove them up your arse?

In reply to Rampikino:


Shite or Flight reflex, in your case


I very rarely have more than one poo per day, after breakfast.

In reply to Rampikino:

Pace car (noun)

Of paying a sit down visit. The slow un-aerodynamic leading turd that, once out of the way, allows the souped-up bastards behind to put their foot down.

In reply to Rampikino:

It's nature's way of punishing you for driving 30-40 minutes to run 5k.

Sorry.

In reply to XXXX:



If I can get this off the ground then I won't have to!!

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=628881

In reply to XXXX:



If I can get this off the ground then I won't have to!!

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=628881

In reply to Rampikino:

I'm the same; I have to have two goes at it and the second always happens an hour or so after the first and especially after the first coffee on arrival at the office. Caffeine definitely stimulates the bowel. It causes mayhem when I'm on overseas trips as I have to get up early enough at my hotel for the process to happen before I go out to work; there are very few opportunities while out on the road in a city like Lagos or Nairobi. I think it's because peristalsis slows almost to a stop during the night and revives in the morning.

Interesting fact told to me by my cycling buddy who is a gastroenterologist: the rectum is equipped with very sensitive nerves, which allow the brain to know the difference between solid, gaseous and liquid contents. It's not always infallible, as we know....

In reply to dj_brigham05:

exactly, flight or fight response... aka.. shitting yourself, literally. Animals do it to.

In reply to Rampikino:

I think the caffeine thing is that caffeine stimulates the production of adrenaline, among other hormones. I've certainly noticed an increase in bowel activity at the foot of a big climb and I remember reading an account by a journalist caught out in the street of an African city when a coup started and bullets began to fly; he wrote that people were so frightened that they actually dropped their pants in the street and afterwards there were piles of poo all over the place.

In reply to Rampikino:

Interesting that coffee has this effect (for me), but tea doesn't. Both contain caffeine and I drink much more tea than coffee, so that should compensate for any difference in strength.

In reply to Rampikino:

Try to change your diet, it might be the problem. I figured out that I am lactose intolerant when I was about 20 years old. I can consume a glass of milk at a time, but if I get more than that I might visit a toilet so often that I should keep a book in there. Took me half a year to understand why did I go to the toilet 4 times in the morning alone.

In reply to PPP:


Its pretty normal, pre-race pre-game toilet routines are pretty much standard and explained by biology.

In reply to Rampikino:

I get this too bud, sometimes it feels like the world is falling out of my ar**.

I put it down to the exercise- everything is pretty firm when you first get out of bed in the morning and takes a while to loosen up.

Worse for me, it usually domes after I've started running.

In reply to Rampikino:

I have exactly the same thing with races/park runs, but not with running by myself, even if I am going for hard/fast run.
Get the same thing with a climb near my limit, but not with an easy climb or at the wall. It must be related to adrenaline and the fight/flight response.

In reply to Chris Harris:

Ah profanisaurus. Great toilet reading and appropriate to this thread.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

He must have a dose of the trots.