I was working on an ultramarathon event a couple of years back, driving the sweep/pickup minibus, bailing injured or retiring runners out to the finish. Things got pretty hectic overnight, and myself and my co-driver didn’t get a chance to stop and get a proper meal, so we had to make do with whatever was available at the feed stations. Unfortunately what they had was mainly crap, nasty sandwiches and sweets – chocolate raisins and jellybeans mostly. Needless to say, a long day and night of living on that and coffee wasn’t doing my digestive system any favours.
We did a dropoff run to the finish, the RNR spot near the Baltic in Gateshead, and I nipped off to the bogs to deal with, shall we say, a certain amount of intestinal pressure. Wandered into the traps hoping no-one else was around, and launched into a mind boggling sequence of postern blasts – long, short, high, low and everything in between. I heard someone walk in the door and take up a cubicle along from me and tried to hold a bit back until they’d gone, but it was no good. Trump after trump after trump; me, red-faced but silently giggling in my stall. Finally it ended, and the next thing I hear is a round of applause from the other end of the john. The only response I could muster through the laughter was “Thank you, but i came in for a s**t, not the Warsaw **** Concerto”…