Mid-race bathroom break.

[gscho]

Hello, I'm new to the blog and hoping to get a little advice. 

Saturday in the Ogden Marathon I had to take my first ever mid-race bathroom break just after the 4 mile mark.  It seemed to take forever for a porta-potty to open up as I watched the seconds tick by.  Finally one opened up and I was back running after losing about 2 1/2 minutes.  I know that's not a lot of time but I panicked and tried to make up the lost time to quickly.  I began paying for this mistake beginning at mile marker 23 right to the end.

I learned a valuable lesson from this but I'm wondering what others have done in similar situations?  Do you try to make up the time at all or continue at the race pace you had planned?

[Dale]

My very worst marathon bonk ever was one where I took a brief porta-potty break at around mile 2.  It was a short break, maybe 20-25 seconds.  After exiting, I ran to try to catch up to the pacer I was trying to stick with.  Never did find them, but I went thru mile 5 way too fast.  Mile 18-ish hit and someone literally flipped my on switch to the off position.  It's still the ugliest race bonk I've ever had. 
My advice?  Stick with your pace.  In the marathon, the race starts at 20 miles.  If you've prepared well, those precious seconds and minutes you lost are there for your taking in this part of the race.  150 seconds is a lot of time to try to make-up in 6 miles, but if you've run your marathon smartly can makeup some of that time in the end.  If you're done by 20 miles and just hanging on, just think of how much worse it would've been if you've tried to make up the time earlier.  I guess the real lesson is to do your best to take care of potty issues before the race.  Easier said than done, I know.

[Sasha Pachev]

VPB!