Rush of sympathy for Poo Jogger

I feel sorry for the Poo Jogger.

And, to be honest, you can hardly call yourself a true runner if you don’t.

Let me say first that the urge to poo on a run doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t pick or choose its victims.

When the time comes, there’s no hiding (sometimes literally). You just have to go.

If you’ve been living under a rock, you might be wondering who the Poo Jogger is.

His real name is Andrew Douglas Macintosh. He was a corporate executive.

Recently he was caught defecating on a pathway. Not once, but allegedly 30 times in a year.

He was busted when fed-up neighbours banded together to catch the man that had fouled their footpath.

When he was busted, there were pictures of him, pants down around his ankles, on every major news website in the country.

It was a deer-in-the-headlights moment for poor Andrew.

The Queenslander was charged with public nuisance, and then resigned from his position with at a leading retirement village. Now, I’m not defending Dougie for pooing in the same place 30 times in a year. That’s outrageous, even for someone who might be a creature of habit. But the running poos come when they come and you’ve got to find the closest, greenest, leafiest and most secluded place as fast as possible. During my time running, I’ve been lucky to avoid the dreaded urge to go. But I’ve been with plenty of people who have quickly found themselves waddling behind some bushes. I’ve seen a good mate of mine break into a construction site, steal some Subway tissues from a bin and then rip open the door of a Portaloo just in time.

The same person rarely makes it past the Queens Park toilets when about 10km into their long run.

Why does it happen? There’re plenty of reasons.

The motion of running isn’t great on the digestive system. It has a habit of finding every remaining part of last night’s dinner. Throw in a dodgy gel and you’re in strife. Let me finish with a thought. Runners aren’t asking for your sympathy. They’re just asking for your understanding.

So have sympathy for the next person you see along the Barwon that bolts into the bushes mid-run. Why? because you might be next.