To Be No. 1 In Race For Relief Requires Plan Those Hydrated Runners Must Compete For Best Time To Available Restrooms

The crisis will strike moments before the race.

It’s time to go. You know, pick a daisy, piddle, winkeytink.

Anyone who’s ever run a footrace knows that nature’s calling is louder than the starting gun.

The plague attains epic proportions at Bloomsday, where nearly 60,000 well-hydrated people are packed into 15 square blocks.

After all, there’s more than 350 Bloomies per restroom in the downtown area.

There are 171 participants per Porta-potty over the entire course. Count volunteers and spectators, and the ratio is even higher.

Simple math indicates everyone can’t answer the call of nature in the 30 minutes before the race.

So what do they do?

Most neophytes panic. They whiz to the nearest Porta-potty, only to find a hundred other novices have outrun them.

The seasoned runner, on the other hand, has devised and even rehearsed a relief system.

But many Bloomies guard their potty plans with the secrecy of a CIA agent. Most of those plans fall into two categories: dark alleys and commercial businesses.

Nobody intending to run a decent race relies on the 350 Porta-potties lining the course and scattered through Riverfront Park.

Janis Fink shared her strategy.

Fink, 48, parks along West Third Avenue about 45 minutes before the race. Then, she stops in every fast food restaurant she passes. “So far, no one’s stopped me,” she said, wary of spoiling her secret.

Fink doesn’t bother to make an obligatory purchase in exchange for use of the powder room. After the race, she usually stops by one of those places for breakfast.

“There’s no way I could pay them all back,” she said.

People who work downtown have an advantage over the pack. Before the race, they waltz shamelessly in and out of private offices, ushering friends, relatives and people they hope to date into clean, odor-free restrooms.

Meanwhile, the masses watch with envy. They check their watches and grimace as they realize they could never get through the Porta-potty lines and back to the start in time.

Bart Haggin said he is not one of the privileged downtown workers. But he is a good runner, concerned with his time (48 minutes last year).

He usually ducks into a dark alley shortly before the race. “Judging by how crowded the alleys are, it’s a popular solution,” he said. It’s also illegal.

Haggin, 58, is in charge of the volunteers who collect the clothing the elite runners wear to the starting line, so they don’t have to toss their sweats into a tree like the rest of the runners.

From 8 a.m. until the gun goes off, Haggin is busy coordinating this effort.

“The nervous pee, every good runner has to take one before a race, sometimes more than one,” Haggin said, philosophically. “It’s a problem of timing.”

It’s a curse that crosses all boundaries, affecting rich and poor, fast and slow, men and women.

Even elite athletes find themselves in this quandary, Haggin said.

Runners, especially those concerned with time, want to be properly hydrated before the race, so they won’t have to stop to drink water.

“If you can get running and sweating, you won’t have to go,” he said. “But sometimes it goes through you faster than you think it will.”

A full tank will impede your progress over the 12K course.

For those who do start the race a little heavier than normal, Waste Management of Spokane provides almost 200 Porta-potties strategically placed along the course.

Supervisor Art Ankley spends months before the race scribbling detailed notes over a map of the course. By race day, his battle plan is ragged from being folded, pocketed and unfolded.

New locations for Porta-potties pop up in his dreams.

People like Marlene Allen give Ankley their deep gratitude.

Allen, 49, was one of those who did NOT have a good plan last year. On top of that, she picked up a latte “for some insane reason” on the way to the starting line.

“I was passing the cemetery and I was overcome by something called “runner’s malaise,” she said.

She ducked into one of Ankley’s blue boxes.

“It really ruined my time,” she said.

Let that serve as a lesson to all.